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March 2023 #15284 Page #10
The Development of the Truss Plate, Part VIII: Patent Skirmishes By Joe Kannapell
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s builders began demanding Gang-Nailed trusses, imitators answered their call with little concern for violating Cal Jureit’s patent. Even though his claims were technical triumphs, vetted by D.C. patent experts, they were quickly contested by two nowfamiliar figures, Bill Black and Walter Moehlenpah. Black was the first to copy Jureit’s plate, doing so the first year the Gang-Nail plate was on the market and before it had been patented. Moehlenpah followed two years later with the same plate design, even after Jureit’s patent was issued and Jureit had sued Black, and undoubtedly he expected to be sued himself. The upshot would prove to be a pyrrhic victory for the inventor. These and other patent skirmishes would shape the trajectory of the plated truss industry from the start of its existence. And because of the intervention of the legal system, that trajectory would not at all be linear. Two conditions unique to South Florida were a strong impetus to Jureit’s invention: the 55 lbs. design loading and the common roof pitch of 2.5/12. These factors, which produce over 7,000 lbs. of axial forces in truss members, preclude any sort of conventional metal or plywood scab connections, and certainly influenced Jureit’s beefy design. Sanford’s patent zeroes in on the heel joint, which must withstand the highest forces in the truss, and he claims that the main advantage of his invention is that a “… lightweight truss can be inexpensively prefabricated from standard two by fours having the novel grip plates at the joints.” Sanford further specifies that the wedge-shaped projections be one inch on center and that nails be driven two inches on center. This requirement for supplementary nails probably precluded challenges to his patent, as all attention was directed at Jureit’s. Sanford was able to nearly double his two-year head start on Jureit because his Grip Plate design was much easier to stamp. Jureit spent an extra year of R&D optimizing his Gang-Nail design, and then had to invest much more time and effort procuring first-of-its-kind tooling and stamping equipment. By law, neither plate could be marketed or sold more than one year prior to the filing of the patent application. So, both inventors, but especially Jureit, had to invest considerable sums before realizing any income. And during the four years that they each had to wait for their patents, they had no legal basis upon which to challenge any of the dozen plates that came onto the market.
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