Unocal Plan to Sell Clean-Fuel Formulas Has Rivals Angry
Sparking anger among its competitors, Unocal Corp. said Tuesday that it will attempt to sell its patented formulas to make the next generation of cleaner-burning gasoline, required in all California service stations by June, 1996.
Unocal claims the formulas are the only practical way for refiners to meet the state standards, which are expected to be the most stringent in the world.
Chevron Corp. responded angrily, countering that Unocal is unfairly trying to claim the rights to more than 200 formulations of gasoline under an overly broad patent. Unocal’s patent, granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office last February, became widely known only after Tuesday’s announcement.
“It really wasn’t clear until today what Unocal would do with their patent,” Chevron spokesman Jim Hendon said. “We don’t feel their formulas are patentable, and therefore we don’t think the patent is enforceable. . . . We think Unocal’s action is detrimental to the climate of cooperation between the industry and the state to come up with these cleaner gasoline formulas.”
Scott Loll, a spokesman for Atlantic Richfield Co., said Arco is studying the Unocal patent. “According to what I’m hearing, Unocal is implying that everybody would have to get a license to go through them,” Loll said. Arco made public its unpatented formula for the first reformulated cleaner-burning gasoline--called EC-1--in 1989.
A Texaco spokesman said Tuesday only that the company has “been in contact with Unocal regarding their patent.”
The California gasoline market consumes 13 billion gallons a year. The new state-mandated fuel, CARB Phase II, must be sold for eight months out of the year.
“It’s safe to say that if this thing turns out to be realistic . . . you would expect to see revenue (for Unocal) in the tens of millions,” said John Vautrain, manager of the Long Beach office of Purvin & Gertz Inc., a refinery consulting firm. “The question is: How broad is the patent? Question 2: If it is broad, is it really valid?”
