Arne Sloth Jensen and Kasper Gehl Larsen

New CEO for EnerDry

Kasper Gehl Larsen appointed new CEO of EnerDry A/S

Mr. Kasper Gehl Larsen has been appointed as Chief Executive Officer of EnerDry A/S in Denmark as of May 1, 2021. He takes over the operational management of CEO Mr. Arne Sloth Jensen, who with his expertise will continue with technical activities within the field of steam drying in EnerDry A/S.
Kasper Gehl Larsen holds a degree in Engineering from the Technical University of Copenhagen. He has been working with steam drying for the last 16 years, starting out with design and drawing of steam drying equipment. First involvement in a big project was the 2005/2006 Nampa steam dryer project. 2009-2012 was largely spend on sales and development of the steam dryer. At the biggest ever EnerDry project; the 2013 turnkey delivery of a size J steam drying plant in Nakskov, Denmark, he was the project manager. In the recent 7 years main focus has been sales, development and leadership. Kasper Gehl Larsen has besides Denmark lived in the U.S. and Germany. He is married and has 3 children.

Tom Knudsen, President ASSBT –·– Arne Sloth Jensen, CEO EnerDry A/S –·– Paul Pfenninger, Vice president ASSBT

Savitsky Award

At the American Society of Sugar Beet Technologist (ASSBT), EnerDry CEO Arne Sloth Jensen was awarded the prestigious Savitsky Award, during the Conference banquet dinner.
He received the Award, for the invention and development of the steam dryer for beet pulp, and his assistance to the American beet sugar Industry.
The Savitsky Award is the highest award available from the Society. The conference was held at the Disneyland hotel in Anaheim, California, February 25th-28th 2019

Patent for steam drying affirmed by the German Federal Court of Justice

01-14-2019 – The patent law team of Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek, jointly with patent attorneys from Denmark and Germany, again prevailed in a patent nullity case before the German Federal Court of Justice. In its January 8, 2019 ruling, the Federal Court of Justice granted the lawyers’ motions and ruled that the German part of patent EP 1 070 223 B1, held by Danish company EnerDry A/S, is legally valid. The action for annulment and the appeal brought by BMA Braunschweigische Maschinenbauanstalt AG, which had already been unsuccessful at the court of first instance, were therefore dismissed. This dismissal is final and non-appealable.

The patent concerns steam drying systems for the drying of biomass. After having been used for sugar production, sugar beet residues are dried and used either as animal feed or as fuel for energy production. Drying with superheated steam is more energy-efficient than conventional drying methods. Steam drying equipment, sometimes up to 20 meters high, play a key role in the use of renewable raw materials worldwide. The patent concerns the steam cleaning and contributes considerably to increasing efficiency. The inventor is Arne Sloth Jensen, General Manager and majority shareholder of EnerDry and an internationally recognized expert in steam drying.

This patent played a key role at Düsseldorf Regional Court (Case No. 4b O 111/14) and Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court (Case No. I -2 U 51/16). It was decided in this patent infringement case that certain steam drying systems offered by BMA infringed the patent (cf. our press releases dated May 23, 2016 and April 28, 2017). This decision is also final.

The patent law team was led by Dr. Anton Horn, Partner and Certified Specialist Lawyer in IP Law, and Birthe Struck, LL.M., Senior Associate and Certified Specialist Lawyer in IP Law, both at Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek. “We are pleased that the highest German court in patent matters has once again recognized an invention by one of our clients,” Horn said. “This invention is based on considerable development work with accordingly high costs, and it may not be adopted by competitors free of charge,” added Struck.

Counsel to EnerDry A/S and ASJ-IPR A/S, both Denmark

Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek:
Dr. Anton Horn, Lawyer, Düsseldorf / Germany
Birthe Struck, LL.M., Lawyer, Düsseldorf / Germany

COHAUSZ & FLORACK:
Andreas Thielmann, Patent Attorney, Düsseldorf / Germany

Budde Schou A/S:
Jan Sörensen, Danish Patent Attorney, Copenhagen / Denmark

October 2017: New Steam Dryer commissioned in Japan

In October 2017, the staff of the Hokuren Sugar Factory in Nakashari Japan, and EnerDry successfully commissioned an EnerDry Steam Dryer size F+.
This marks the end of a very successful cooperation between all involved partners, enabling the Hokuren Nakashari Sugar Factory, to steam dry all their pressed pulp, thus achieving a substantial environmental and economical saving. Furthermore, due to the capacity of the EnerDry size F+ Steam Dryer, an increase in the current slicing capacity of 6600t/day is possible.
EnerDry is looking forward to the future long-time cooperation with the skilled staff of the Hokuren Nakashari Sugar Factory.

EnerDry’s Patent of Steam Drying Successfully Enforced

Announcement issued by Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek: In its April 6, 2017 judgment, Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court confirmed that German company BMA Braunschweigische Maschinenbauanstalt AG is infringing a patent of Danish company EnerDry A/S. A team led by patent law specialist Dr. Anton Horn of Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek successfully represented EnerDry A/S in the second instance as well.

EnerDry A/S, Denmark, is one of the leading companies in the area of steam drying. ‎It designs and manufactures steam drying systems on a global basis. Steam dryers are mainly used for drying beet pulp. Beet pulp is a residual product in the sugar beet industry, which can be dried to high-value animal feed. Steam dryers save large quantities of energy compared to conventional drying systems.

EnerDry holds numerous patents based on inventions by its founder and CEO Arne Sloth Jensen, including European Patent EP 1 070 223 B1. This patent relates to steam dryers with a specific type of cyclone‎, which substantially improves the capacity and efficiency of steam dryers. EnerDry as the exclusive licensee for this patent was of the opinion that BMA Braunschweigische Maschinenbauanstalt AG infringed the German part of this patent by offering certain steam dryers to potential German and international customers, in particular to a company in Sweden for which BMA actually built a steam dryer.

In May 2016, Düsseldorf Regional Court had already ruled in first instance that a patent infringement of European patent EP 1 070 223 was given. BMA appealed the ruling, but, as was ruled now, unsuccessfully, since Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court largely confirmed the first instance ruling. According to this judgment, BMA is no longer allowed to offer or manufacture patent-infringing ‎steam dryers in Germany. The judgment is based on BMA’s publications and offers in general and the specific installation in Sweden. Other than the Regional Court in the first instance, however, the Higher Regional Court ruled that EnerDry was not entitled to ask for the withdrawal and destruction of already manufactured installations.

Previously, BMA had attempted to trivialize the scope of the judgment of first instance. In a press release, BMA stated that the judgment related only to “marketing material” and did not affect any actually built system. By judgment of October 14, 2016, a different chamber of Düsseldorf Regional Court had ordered BMA to refrain from publishing this press release, as it was misleading and did not correspond to the real scope of the judgment. This judgment has become final and non-appealable.

In addition, BMA had tried to avoid the verdict of patent infringement by filing a nullity action against the German part of the patent EP 1 070 223 B1 with the German Federal Patent Court in Munich. By judgment of March 7, 2017, the Federal Patent Court rejected this nullity action as well and maintained the patent as granted.

Jensen commented on the overall result as follows: “We are happy that the patent has been maintained and enforced successfully. We will monitor carefully if BMA complies with the judgments.” He added: “Competition is fine, but everyone should respect the intellectual property of others. It took us many years of hard work to improve and enhance the steam drying technology, and we will not tolerate that anyone copies our design in an illegal manner. We all should bear in mind that willful patent infringement is a crime.”

The judgments of the Higher Regional Court and of the Federal Patent Court are not yet final. BMA may file appeals against these judgments.

Counsel to EnerDry A/S, Denmark
German lawyers: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Dr. Anton Horn,
Birthe Struck, LL.M.,
Peter Horstmann (all Patent Law),
Dr. Georg Jacobs (Competition Law), all Düsseldorf

Danish patent attorneys: Budde Schou A/S, Copenhagen
Henrik Sten Nielsen,
Andreas Dahlquist

German patent attorneys: COHAUSZ & FLORACK, Düsseldorf
Andreas Thielmann