Leupold & Stevens, Inc. has sued Bushnell, Inc. and others for infringement of a patent granted to Leupold® relating to its True Ballistic Range® technology (TBR®), accoriding to a release by the company.


TBR was introduced by Leupold in 2006, and uses an advanced algorithm to deliver exceptionally accurate ranging capability that is matched to a bullet’s ballistic profile.


Leupold said the complaint was filed Feb. 2, 2010, in U.S. District Court in Portland, Ore., and alleges that Bushnell’s sales of range-finding products incorporating Angle Range Compensation (ARC) infringe U.S. Patent No. 7,654,029 owned by Leupold.


“Leupold asserted provisional patent rights more than two years before filing suit, but Bushnell continued to manufacture and sell the infringing products,” said Andy York, Leupold’s vice president of sales, marketing, and product development. “Leupold has invested a significant amount of engineering and development resources in the production of this patented technology and the company will vigorously enforce its intellectual property rights against all infringers. Generally, we prefer to resolve disputes without resorting to litigation, but in this case, our management decided that due to the substantial amount of time some of the defendants had been on notice, that litigation was necessary.”


The complaint also names as defendants Burris Co, Inc. for the Burris Eliminator laser scope, and Carl Zeiss Optical, Inc. for sales of range-finding products incorporating its Ballistic Information System (BIS) feature.