Among the low-volume companies Zebra currently owns are coffinmaker Hillenbrand and insurer Chubb Corp.
Hillenbrand lost a couple of years later when it sued Kinetic Concepts for the same thing.
Hillenbrand argued that the so-called "tying" agreement helped buyers by giving them lower prices.
The number of deaths in recent years has been flat, says Ken Camp, Hillenbrand CEO.
He says that both K-Tron and Hillenbrand are manufacturing companies with similar processes.
Hillenbrand vows to win this fight, although its past record isn't encouraging.
Casket maker Hillenbrand ( HI) saw its yield jump to 8% from just over 3% after revenue growth slid below the 10% benchmark.
Hillenbrand declined comment, other than to say it plans to appeal.
"Hillenbrand was very concerned about the Kinetic Concepts threat, " Macon says.
Hillenbrand, a casket manufacturing business, acquired K-Tron, a pneumatic equipment company, in anticipation that the death-related services industry will not see much growth in the next few years.
The suit accused Hillenbrand of using its control of the conventional hospital-bed market to try to take over the faster-growing business of renting sophisticated beds designed to reduce complications such as bedsores and pneumonia.
Among the other books that suit my summer taste for page-turning history include No Ordinary Time, by Doris Kearns Goodwin, Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand and, a book I recently read about the relationship between Roosevelt and Churchill, Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship by Jon Meacham.
In this case, Hillenbrand offered hospitals discounts averaging 7% on conventional beds if they agreed to rent the specialized beds as well. (Because of their expense and the training required to operate them, the beds are usually rented.) Since Kinetic Concepts doesn't have a conventional- bed business, it found it almost impossible to compete.
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