AERT Patent

Advanced Environmental Recycling Technologies Inc. finally has its key patent. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office notified the Springdale-based company last February that its application had been approved, but the patent wasn’t issued until June 2.

Joe G. Brooks, president of AERT, and Billy D. Goforth and Charles L. Goforth, who work with Bargo Engineering Co. of Fayetteville, are listed as inventors.

The patent covers AERT’s wood/plastic composite product and related process claims and has been described by Brooks as the company’s “crown jewel” of patents. The investigation took more than five years — the application was filed Jan. 22, 1993 — and covered dozens of documents, including Volumes I and II of the trial in which tiny AERT and giant Mobil Oil Corp. faced off. Three years after the trial, motions are still pending in the lawsuit — including one concerning the process now covered by the latest patent.