U.S. Patent and Trademark Office reexamines and reaffirms Lambda’s surface enhancement technology.

May 09, 2007 (PRLEAP.COM) Business News
Cincinnati, Ohio – May 2007 – Cincinnati-based, Lambda Technologies (www.lambdatechs.com) is pleased to announce that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has completed its reexamination of Lambda Technologies’ patent No. 5,826,453, named “Burnishing Method and Apparatus for Providing a Layer of Compressive Residual Stress in the Surface of a Workpiece” and confirmed the patentability of all 20 claims contained therein.

Patent No. 5,826,453, issued on October 27, 1998, protects Lambda’s breakthrough method of improving the surface of metal components known as Low Plasticity Burnishing (LPB). Between 2003 and 2005, Ecoroll Corp. Tool Technology of Milford, Ohio, an affiliate of Ecoroll AG Werkzeugtechnik of Germany, initiated a series of challenges to the validity of Lambda’s patented burnishing technologies in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The latest of these disputes was filed in October of 2005 and tested the validity of patent No. 5,826,453. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office found all claims to be “patentable over the applied art of record.”

Lambda’s Corporate Counsel, Brian A. Tent, noted “with the conclusion of the ‘453 proceedings, all of Lambda’s burnishing patents have emerged from reexamination intact, enforceable and stronger”.

LPB is a proven surface treatment that develops a deep layer of high compressive residual stress (RS) to mitigate fretting fatigue, corrosion fatigue, or fatigue from foreign object damage (FOD) in the fatigue prone areas of expensive and critical aircraft components such as landing gear, propeller hubs, and turbine engine blades.

Unlike other burnishing or "deep rolling" methods, LPB involves a single pass of a smooth free rolling spherical ball tool used under a normal force sufficient to deform the surface of the material, creating a thermally and mechanically stable layer of compressive residual stress with controlled or minimized plastic deformation. Application of LPB promises significant fatigue life extension with minimal initial capital investment and low production costs.

Lambda Technologies is an innovative company incorporating a premier materials research laboratory with a world-class engineering and production enterprise dedicated to the development and optimization of surface treatments to improve component performance. For additional information on Lambda Technologies or licensing the LPB process, contact Brian C. Murphy at (513) 561-0883 or visit www.lambdatechs.com

Contact: Brian C. Murphy
Lambda Technologies Corporate Headquarters
3929 Virginia Avenue
Cincinnati, OH 45227-3411
Tel: (513) 561-0883
Toll-Free: (800) 883-0851
Fax: (513) 561-0886
E-mail: bmurphy@lambdatechs.com

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