Antonov Share Discussion Threads

[pkw] 05/9/2006 10:21

Major signal from John Moore , CEO of Antonov....

"I am confident of the commercial success of both our existing
programmes on the 6 speed automatic and 2 speed supercharger.."

That suggests that the Great Wall Motor China deal on the 6 speed is very much on course - and that will be very big news indeed!

[wikroberts] 05/9/2006 10:10

MMs are now reversing the situation....nice of them !

[wikroberts] 01/9/2006 16:04

Waited to see if there were delayed sells to warrant this drop and can't see any. I think the share price before the announcement did not reflect the fact that the market anticipated 100% positive result of that court action anyway....

[ang5] 01/9/2006 14:03

not buy. because small company, you do not know, how this Ltd working,
if you knew, please comm..., thanks.

[crystalclear] 01/9/2006 08:53

Yes, very strange for the Germans to grant a patent and then say 'err, our patent department made an error, we shouldn't have done that'!

[littlebert] 01/9/2006 07:44

Have noticed our friendly MMs have dropped another 8p off the share price on zero trades..... do they not realise those who would panic and sell did so when they crashed the price down from 100p and 80p earlier this year, again on zero sells. I've said before, they aren't making a market, they are preventing a market!

[waldron] 01/9/2006 07:12

Antonov says Munich court does not uphold validity of German patent vs Toyota

LONDON (AFX) - Antonov PLC said the Federal Patent Court in Munich has not
upheld the validity of the German part of Antonov's patent against Toyota.
This patent was due to expire in 2009 and covers the use of a drivetrain
which balances the drive from an engine and an electric motor with the load from
a vehicle and a generator.
Antonov said it will be considering its options in the light of this ruling,
and will make further announcements regarding what action will now be taken.
Antonov also said that although the board is disappointed by this decision,
legal action was deemed appropriate by senior legal counsel and minimal costs
were incurred under the German legal system.
Provision for these costs has already been allocated with no revenue
attributed to a successful outcome.
Antonov also reassured that this ruling does not impact upon the company's
other patents.
[e-mail]
slm

[littlebert] 29/8/2006 15:51

OK - What happened in Germany? Someone thinks it's bad or they wouldn't have dropped the price right after the hearing!....
(edit) or maybe not, cos they put it back on again :-)

[crystalclear] 25/8/2006 17:37

SAIC are buying the Rover name if Ford doesn't use their first right of refusal.
This is a step in the right direction for putting dual clutch Antonov transmissions in the Rover 75, but that is no more than a pencilled in possibility in my mind.

Great Wall small cars and transmission sales to Nanjing could be Antonov's life blood of the future, but some cash from Toyota and the recognition it would bring would be quite welcome.

If Antonov sign with Great Wall, then SAIC might start a Rover 25 project and consider the AAD for that.

There are lots of maybes. I think a tier-1 is likely to go for the AAM alternator drive sometime. Fuel saving is becoming an important issue. It is easier to decide to use Antonov's technology than it is to find a large new oil field.

Some time soon, the investing public is going discover that dual clutch transmissions (and other powershift transmissions, like the AAD) are happening big time, and that Torotrak's IVT is looking niche market and/or way in the future.

[littlebert] 25/8/2006 11:33

Looking forward to Tuesday - or as it will be forever known, 'Good News Day' :-)

[crystalclear] 22/8/2006 15:09

I believe that Antonov would be entitled to a percent of the cost of the vehicle and not a percentage of the profit. Whether Toyota sells its vehicles at a profit or loss is a matter internal to them. Honda doesn't really make money with the Insight, but they maintain sales as it emits 81 g/km CO2 compared to 114 for the Prius. It thus allows them to demonstate to the public that they have superior technology to Toyota, in the same way that Honda beating Toyota by winning the Hungarian grand prix demonstrates the superiority of Honda technology over Toyota's.

I think the recent case where Toyota have infinged claims in Paice's patents are simply about whether Toyota should be made to stop selling their hybrids. Since Paice are not losing market share, but only losing money, the situation can be resolved with money and so Toyota should be allowed to continue selling the vehicles. Finance can always be sort out later by a cash payment.

With market share between rivals, it is harder (if not impossible) to get a rival to 'give back' market share it has won by stealing intellectual property.
However it is only whether Antonov win something in court that really matters and not whether Toyota are made to withdraw the Prius: I think Toyota would settle somehow before things ever got that far. They cannot like the mud sticking to their name.

[littlebert] 22/8/2006 09:38

Nightmare scenario here is, I suppose, the courts decide big companies can use patented products without first obtaining a licence, then let a jury decide how much of the profits from each component should go to the little guy, who is dependant on licence fees, not royalties, to cover R & D costs..... As Toyota notionally loses money on every Prius it sells, does that mean the jury may well decide that Paice and ATV should be awarded a share of the loss (negative profit!) on each vehicle. That probably makes sense to the Yanks :-o
Thankfully, there are no plans to pursue cases there.....

[littlebert] 22/8/2006 09:32

So, only last week, Toyota brazened out a patent infringement case against Paice involving the Prius - but the court ruled that irreparable damage had not been done to Paice as "infringing products can be remedied via monetary damages in accordance with the reasonable royalty set by jury"... I would hope that, right now, the legal bods at ATV are working out what would be acceptable royalties to avoid dragging this out for too long....

Bottom line is, the car buying public will get fed up of the bad smell created from court cases like these and will vote with their wallets against Toyota.

[crystalclear] 21/8/2006 21:45

Possibly another example of Toyota breaking hybrid patents. In December 2005 Toyota were found to infringe two of the claims of Paice's (not Antonov's) patent US5343970A1, and it appears that getting Toyota to settle financially are still ongoing. Paying a few million to lawyers is presumably more profitable for a large company like Toyota than settling, if there is a chance the plaintiff will run out of money to fight the court cases.

[crystalclear] 21/8/2006 12:52

I don't see Toyota being able to buy out Antonov.
Roumen holds say 10%, Quivest 17%, David Bovell 1%, etc.
(Maybe AXA 15% Fidelity 7%, Cees Minaar 7%, see above)
I believe the fallacy is that there are a large number of shares available, just because large numbers of shares are traded in Amsterdam. It is my belief that the same shares are going round in circles. In is normal nowadays for 100% of company's share capital to be turned over in 11 months whereas it used to be more like 8 years! Cleary the same shares are being bought and sold repeatedly. However to take control of a company you need to buy different shares.

Regarding Toyota's challenge to Antonov's patent - which is not the subject of the Dusseldorf court infringement decision, but a separate Munich validity decision, I agree. It would be odd for a patent authority to decide they had made a huge error granting a patent 10 years ago, if the same patent had been granted by about 50 other countries. Nobody likes admitting any sort of incompetence. Maybe Toyota can convince their Japanese patent department to annul Antonov's patent in Japan, using national loyalty and personal links, but it would surprise me if they could get Antonov's patent in Europe annulled to allow them to use it royalty free.

Roumen has said that the patent teaches how to create a hybrid vehicle by linking his CVT transmission, two electric motor generators, the wheels and the internal combustion engine together. Hence Antonov should be entitled to a portion of the price of the whole hybrid vehicle and not just its transmission.

There is a photo on the internet of Roumen and Takao Taniguchi meeting at the Paris motorshow in 2003, so it is also odd of Toyota if they claim ignorance of the Antonov patent: what do gearbox makers and designers discuss when they meet professionally, the weather? Clearly - if found guilty - their position has become one of criminal intent, and I would hope punitive damages would take that into account. However I don't expect any calculation of damages to be made until validiay and infringement decisions are made.

How long did Toyota have an ATV prototype for before coming up with their own ...

I don't think Toyota ever got a prototype Antonov CVT. I think the closest they got was releated companies getting prototype 4-speed AMMs.

[littlebert] 21/8/2006 12:23

The thing that always strikes me as ludicrous is the potential meltdown around the world if a major corporation is able to succesfully challenge the viability of a genuine patent. The German courts have no option but to uphold the patent. Toyota would then, in my opinion, have two options - agree a settlement with ATV or buy out ATV, which at current market valuations, would be the cheaper of the two!

How long did Toyota have an ATV prototype for before coming up with their own (obviously unrelated(!)) version for the Prius?

[crystalclear] 21/8/2006 12:09

(See 1st August posting by schauburg)

....
die Verhandlung der von Ihnen angefragten Patentsache ist öffentlich und findet am 29. August 2006 um 14.30 Uhr im Saal R 257 statt.
.....

So it seems to be at 14:30 CET on 29th August in room R257.

[crystalclear] 21/8/2006 12:07

Am 29. August 2006 um 14.30 Uhr sehen sich Kläger und Vertreter des japanischen Autogiganten vor der 1. Patentstreitkammer in Düsseldorf (Az.: 4a O 182/05).

[littlebert] 21/8/2006 09:22

Anyone got a date for the German court hearing?

[w1sefool] 07/8/2006 12:17

Thanks all

[pkw] 07/8/2006 12:13

Crystalclear - Toyota now have a very small window of opportunity in which to settle the patent dispute before the German courts do it for them: there are some heavy Dutch backers supporting Antonov who I hear are very confident that ATV has an extremely strong position. Toyota might be very wise to settle out of court because if the German court finds conclusively for ATV the damages alone will be huge and then there will be the need for Toyota to agree future license fees from a position of real weakness.


Toyota could bid for ATV to resolve the situation, but that might just push Honda into the arena as well! Or perhaps Honda might pre-empt Toyota?

Exciting times for a possibly very very undervalued ATV - and that is before the Great Wall deal gets through(what appears to be the usual Chinese bureaucratic formalities).

Back above £1.20 would happen overnight on a good result in the German courts
- maybe even £2+ wouldn't look unlikely.