EUCLID, Ohio–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Terves today announced that it has obtained a significant judgment and nearly $200,000 sanction award against Magnesium Machine, LLC (Duncan, OK) and its attorneys at Dunlap Codding, P.C., ending one of several legal battles with Magnesium Machine over Terves’ patented TervAlloy dissolvable metal used by the fracking industry.

The case traces back to Terves’ patent lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio for patent infringement against Magnesium Machine’s importer, Ecometal Inc. Soon after Terves filed that case, Magnesium Machine sued Terves and its attorneys in the same Ohio District Court, alleging trade secret misappropriation.

The same judge presiding over Terves’ patent case dismissed that trade secret case as brought in bad faith, declared that Magnesium Machine’s conduct was “at best intentionally misleading, and at worst, intentionally deceptive,” and ruled its attorneys litigated “unreasonably and vexatiously.”

After the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed those rulings in December 2021, the Ohio District Court ordered Magnesium Machine and Dunlap Codding to reimburse Terves for nearly $200,000 in legal fees that Terves incurred defending against the frivolous lawsuit.

Terves’ CEO, Andrew Sherman states “Terves is pleased that the Court analyzed the law and facts to not only confirm that we did nothing wrong, but that Magnesium Machine’s suit was brought deceptively.”

Terves is the technology and cost leader in the development, manufacturing and sale of Engineered Response™ smart materials for the oil and gas industry. Terves’ intelligent materials sense and respond to their local wellbore environment to “do more”, such as dissolve, change dimensions, generate force or heat, destroy chemicals or bacteria, bond together, or solubilize and disperse  based on change in time, temperature, pressure, PH, electrostatic charge, or other change in the local environment.

Terves is the leading manufacturer of dissolvable metals and dissolvable elastomers that are used for making frac balls, plugs, slips, seals and several other components used in oil and gas well completion and production; and have been used for completing tens of thousands of stages in North America, Europe, South America, Asia and MENA regions. Terves’ product portfolio also includes highly-engineered specialty proppants, expandable materials, acoustic imaging tools, thermites and structural reactive materials, net-shaped ceramic-metallic (cermet) nanocomposites, and high energy density supercapacitors. Terves is a strong materials science research-based and product-focused organization that works with oil and gas majors, operators, EPCs and OEMs to develop and commercialize compelling technologies, products and capabilities for critical challenges in oil and gas exploration, production and completion operations.