Does the world have room for another full suspension design?



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Simon Brooke

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I expect people who have been reading the silly questions I've been asking over the past few months
will have guessed I've been working on a new full suspension design. I'm not going to discuss
details of the design at this stage because I haven't decided whether to apply for patents (yes, it
_is_ different enough to be patentable). My question is, is there room in the market for yet another
full suspension design?

I've ditched the more left-field ideas I was playing with in favour of something which is
practicably and economically manufacturable; the welding should actually be somewhat less complex
than on many current full suspension designs (fewer frame components); so it should not be any more
expensive to build than other limited production full suspension frames.

The design is optimised for cross-country, especially very technical cross country; it's not a
downhill design. Although it would be possible to deliver it frame only, the front and rear
suspension systems are designed together to work together and the bike would not work nearly as well
with a conventional fork. The basic geometry is similar to a family of designs which has been very
successful, although with a tweak to address a particular failing of that family.

It looks radically different. There's no question of you mistaking this design from any angle for
any current design. So from the looks point of view it is marketable. It will also work
substantially better in some conditions than current designs, so from the tech point of view it
should be marketable. But the components needed to deliver the concept are not cheap so it's
probably going to need to retail in the US$2500-US$3500 range.

At this stage I have a number of options, from least to most risky/rewarding:

* Treat the idea as yet another air-dream and forget about it

* Publish the details on the Internet in the hope someone picks it up and runs with it

* Apply for patents and try to flog the concept to an existing manufacturer

* Get together with some engineering friends locally and start manufacturing

Any advice?

Oh, and, before you ask, no I don't have a prototype yet.

--
[email protected] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

;; When your hammer is C++, everything begins to look like a thumb.
 
"Simon Brooke" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> I expect people who have been reading the silly questions I've been asking over the past few
> months will have guessed I've been working on a new full suspension design. I'm not going to
> discuss details of the design at this stage because I haven't decided whether to apply for patents
> (yes, it _is_ different enough to be patentable). My question is, is there room in the market for
> yet another full suspension design?

Yes, provided it is damn good. With the quality of current air and coil shocks, the efectiveness of
SPV, and the successful incorporation of VPP by Santa Cruz and Intense, your design better kick
lots of ass.

I imagine that, for a company to sink development dough into a new design, it better be the holy
grail of suspension tech. But I warn you, most people feel that has already been discovered in VPP.
>
> I've ditched the more left-field ideas I was playing with in favour of something which is
> practicably and economically manufacturable; the welding should actually be somewhat less complex
> than on many current full suspension designs (fewer frame components); so it should not be any
> more expensive to build than other limited production full suspension frames.

Which is smart; less pieces = more friendly to mtb-ers.

> It looks radically different. There's no question of you mistaking this design from any angle for
> any current design. So from the looks point of view it is marketable. It will also work
> substantially better in some conditions than current designs, so from the tech point of view it
> should be marketable. But the components needed to deliver the concept are not cheap so it's
> probably going to need to retail in the US$2500-US$3500 range.

Is that price frame only? Regardless, 3,000 buys you a built Intense Spider, a LOT of bike to
compete with. And those radical looks you might be envisioning as an appeal to wacky mountain bikers
are just as likely to scare them away...sadly, most bikers with thousands to spend are spending on
image more than they are the ride itself. If it looks like they're riding a spaceship, they'll stick
with established designs.

>
> At this stage I have a number of options, from least to most risky/rewarding:
>

Hey, I say show a CAD drawing to some guys in the industry you can trust not to steal any
ideas...patent everything first, of course. Hell, I'd like to see a CAD drawing - and I'm a poor
college student, so I'll not be manufacturing frames any time soon (ever).

Good luck.

Chris
 
Simon Brooke <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
>
> At this stage I have a number of options, from least to most risky/rewarding:
>
> * Treat the idea as yet another air-dream and forget about it

Your choice.

> * Publish the details on the Internet in the hope someone picks it up and runs with it

Perhaps better than choice #1, because you don't have to do anything beyond this, but you still have
some degree of intellectual ownership for a year or two (I don't remember which).

> * Apply for patents and try to flog the concept to an existing manufacturer

You probably won't get enough in royalties from an unproven design with zero market share to make it
worth your trouble. You might get lucky, though, and find someone willing to take it on as some sort
of joint venture to manufacture the frame for you with rights to also use the design, or something
like that.

> * Get together with some engineering friends locally and start manufacturing

This is the only choice I see that has a good chance of making much money, if the design proves to
be substantially superior in practice and sufficiently original that no one can easily work around
the patentable features, and the patentable features are tied to the performance features. Also,
you will have to make sure that it doesn't get outlawed by sanctioning bodies that would be lobbied
hard by established manufacturers. If all of these factors are not pretty sure things I would fall
back to #3.

JP
 
"Simon Brooke" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> I expect people who have been reading the silly questions I've been asking over the past few
> months will have guessed I've been working on a new full suspension design. I'm not going to
> discuss details of the design at this stage because I haven't decided whether to apply for patents
> (yes, it _is_ different enough to be patentable). My question is, is there room in the market for
> yet another full suspension design?
>

I'd guess full suspension designs haven't been around so long that all the best ideas have been
flushed out yet. Go get a prototype built. You might be able to protect your design with the builder
through a non-disclosure type of legal agreement. See if the reality meets the theory. Benchmark
your design against the best of what's out there today. If you really have something, going down the
patent route then might make sense. A possible business model to follow is something like Maverick.
They build a fairly small number of ML-7's, but have licensed the design to Klein (Trek) for the
masses and to Seven Cycles for the elite custom market. I'd guess they make more money through the
Klein license than from their own frames.

> The design is optimised for cross-country, especially very technical cross country; it's not a
> downhill design. Although it would be possible to deliver it frame only, the front and rear
> suspension systems are designed together to work together and the bike would not work nearly as
> well with a conventional fork. The basic geometry is similar to a family of designs which has been
> very successful, although with a tweak to address a particular failing of that family.

Is your design for XC racing or for the enthusiast or both? Take a pulse of the market to see if
your design fits. Talk to sales folks in bike shops about what market segments they are trying to
satisfy. If your not racing, is there a current trend away from XC and towards "all mountain"
designs that feature a bit more travel than the typical XC racer? I've picked up a hint of that
around here (New England). You want to target a product for where the market is going, not where
it's been.

> * Get together with some engineering friends locally and start manufacturing
>
> Any advice?

Get together with others who have complementary skills. If you are an engineer, and have worked out
the detailed design, I doubt you need a lot more engineering talent at this point to start a
company. You need others who might understand the venture capital space/finance, manufacturing, and
marketing/business development, ...
 
On Fri, 26 Dec 2003 11:05:03 GMT, Simon Brooke <[email protected]>
may have said:

>My question is, is there room in the market for yet another full suspension design?

There is ample room and plenty of demand for a good one. If it's simply "yet another" and not
significantly better in some useful respect (functionality, travel, durability, expense, etc) then
the answer becomes "yes, but you've got some stiff competition."

>The design is optimised for cross-country, especially very technical cross country; it's not a
>downhill design.

At least you're targeting a market that's large enough to have some potential sales.

>Although it would be possible to deliver it frame only, the front and rear suspension systems are
>designed together to work together and the bike would not work nearly as well with a conventional
>fork. The basic geometry is similar to a family of designs which has been very successful, although
>with a tweak to address a particular failing of that family.

So it's a design patent, not a basic.

>It looks radically different. There's no question of you mistaking this design from any angle for
>any current design. So from the looks point of view it is marketable. It will also work
>substantially better in some conditions than current designs, so from the tech point of view it
>should be marketable. But the components needed to deliver the concept are not cheap so it's
>probably going to need to retail in the US$2500-US$3500 range.

That price would put you into the "limited production" range, it's true.

>At this stage I have a number of options, from least to most risky/rewarding:
>
>* Treat the idea as yet another air-dream and forget about it
>
>* Publish the details on the Internet in the hope someone picks it up and runs with it
>
>* Apply for patents and try to flog the concept to an existing manufacturer
>
>* Get together with some engineering friends locally and start manufacturing
>
>Any advice?

I'd go for the the patent if the funds are available, unless you're more interested in seeing the
bike built and marketed than in making money from it.

Possible avenue:

Search for and team with an existing frame maker whose designs are stodgy but whose techniques are
adequate. File the preliminary paperwork for the patent (and believe me, when you get to the point
of building the prototype. all sorts of things will be discovered that you weren't considering) and
then build the prototype. With the first unit in hand and adequately tested, proceed with the patent
and publicity.

When searching for a frame maker, be prepared for a lot of them to do the "Oh gods not another
Genius With a Revolutionary New Frame Design" reaction. Many have heard and seen too many such
pitches in the past. Others will cheerfully tell you that they'll be thrilled to build whatever you
want, at your expense.

If your primary interest is in getting the design built rather than in making money, then publish it
after filing the initial patent paperwork.

--
My email address is antispammed; pull WEEDS if replying via e-mail.
Yes, I have a killfile. If I don't respond to something,
it's also possible that I'm busy.
Words processed in a facility that contains nuts.
 
Simon Brooke <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> I expect people who have been reading the silly questions I've been asking over the past few
> months will have guessed I've been working on a new full suspension design. I'm not going to
> discuss details of the design at this stage because I haven't decided whether to apply for patents
> (yes, it _is_ different enough to be patentable). My question is, is there room in the market for
> yet another full suspension design?
>
> I've ditched the more left-field ideas I was playing with in favour of something which is
> practicably and economically manufacturable; the welding should actually be somewhat less complex
> than on many current full suspension designs (fewer frame components); so it should not be any
> more expensive to build than other limited production full suspension frames.
>
> The design is optimised for cross-country, especially very technical cross country; it's not a
> downhill design. Although it would be possible to deliver it frame only, the front and rear
> suspension systems are designed together to work together and the bike would not work nearly as
> well with a conventional fork. The basic geometry is similar to a family of designs which has been
> very successful, although with a tweak to address a particular failing of that family.
>
> It looks radically different. There's no question of you mistaking this design from any angle for
> any current design. So from the looks point of view it is marketable. It will also work
> substantially better in some conditions than current designs, so from the tech point of view it
> should be marketable. But the components needed to deliver the concept are not cheap so it's
> probably going to need to retail in the US$2500-US$3500 range.
>
> At this stage I have a number of options, from least to most risky/rewarding:
>
> * Treat the idea as yet another air-dream and forget about it
>
> * Publish the details on the Internet in the hope someone picks it up and runs with it
>
> * Apply for patents and try to flog the concept to an existing manufacturer
>
> * Get together with some engineering friends locally and start manufacturing
>
> Any advice?
>
> Oh, and, before you ask, no I don't have a prototype yet.

Dear Orville,

What else have we got to do when the breeze makes flying too dangerous?

Fondly,

Wilbur
 
"Chris" <[email protected]> writes:

> "Simon Brooke" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
>
> Which is smart; less pieces = more friendly to mtb-ers.
>
> > It looks radically different. There's no question of you mistaking this design from any angle
> > for any current design. So from the looks point of view it is marketable. It will also work
> > substantially better in some conditions than current designs, so from the tech point of view it
> > should be marketable. But the components needed to deliver the concept are not cheap so it's
> > probably going to need to retail in the US$2500-US$3500 range.
>
> Is that price frame only?

No, frame only it should be relatively cheap. Under US$1000 retail. Frame and forks, more than
US$1500. The forks are probably more complex than the frame.

> Hey, I say show a CAD drawing to some guys in the industry you can trust not to steal any
> ideas...patent everything first, of course. Hell, I'd like to see a CAD drawing - and I'm a poor
> college student, so I'll not be manufacturing frames any time soon (ever).

I'll be doing that.

--
[email protected] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

;; Friends don't send friends HTML formatted emails.
 
"rosco" <reverse-the-following"ocsor_g"@hotmail.com> writes:

> "Simon Brooke" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]... Is your design for XC racing or for the
> enthusiast or both? Take a pulse of the market to see if your design fits. Talk to sales folks in
> bike shops about what market segments they are trying to satisfy. If your not racing, is there a
> current trend away from XC and towards "all mountain" designs that feature a bit more travel than
> the typical XC racer? I've picked up a hint of that around here (New England). You want to target
> a product for where the market is going, not where it's been.

The geometry is capable of long travel (up to about 200mm at both ends) but my assumption is that
you will typically want to tune it to deliver a lot less than that.

>
> > * Get together with some engineering friends locally and start manufacturing
> >
> > Any advice?
>
> Get together with others who have complementary skills. If you are an engineer, and have worked
> out the detailed design, I doubt you need a lot more engineering talent at this point to start a
> company. You need others who might understand the venture capital space/finance, manufacturing,
> and marketing/business development, ...
>
>

--
[email protected] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

;; Friends don't send friends HTML formatted emails.
 
Werehatrack <[email protected]> writes:

> On Fri, 26 Dec 2003 11:05:03 GMT, Simon Brooke <[email protected]> may have said: I'd go for
> the the patent if the funds are available, unless you're more interested in seeing the bike built
> and marketed than in making money from it.

Well, frankly I'm most interested in seeing it built and having one to play with. But that I can
probably do myself (and will need to anyway as a prototype if I'm going to do anything with it
myself). But I'm also a late-middle-aged software engineer wondering how many years I've got left in
this game and thinking about a career shift, so the idea of setting up a new bike company is
somewhat appealing to.

--
[email protected] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

;; Friends don't send friends HTML formatted emails.
 
"Simon Brooke" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> "rosco" <reverse-the-following"ocsor_g"@hotmail.com> writes:
>
> > "Simon Brooke" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> > news:[email protected]... Is your design for XC racing or for the
> > enthusiast or both? Take a
pulse of
> > the market to see if your design fits. Talk to sales folks in bike
shops
> > about what market segments they are trying to satisfy. If your not
racing,
> > is there a current trend away from XC and towards "all mountain" designs that feature a bit more
> > travel than the typical XC racer? I've picked
up a
> > hint of that around here (New England). You want to target a product
for
> > where the market is going, not where it's been.
>
> The geometry is capable of long travel (up to about 200mm at both ends) but my assumption is that
> you will typically want to tune it to deliver a lot less than that.

Sounds like a freeride-style bike.

About your custom fork, you probably don't want to do that. If you sell the frame and fork together,
then most riders will probably swap out the fork with a long-travel one they prefer, such as the
Dirt Jumper or Z1 series of Marzocchi forks. You may want to concentrate more on the frame, and let
the rest follow.

If your prototype seems to hold up well, try it out at a freeride hot spot like British Columbia,
and ask riders what they think... maybe even offer a short test ride?

Good luck to you!

--
Phil, Squid-in-Training
 
"Simon Brooke" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> "Chris" <[email protected]> writes:
>
> > "Simon Brooke" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> > news:[email protected]...
> >
But the components needed to deliver the
> > > concept are not cheap so it's probably going to need to retail in the US$2500-US$3500 range.
> >
> > Is that price frame only?
>
> No, frame only it should be relatively cheap. Under US$1000 retail. Frame and forks, more than
> US$1500. The forks are probably more complex than the frame.
>

If you can produce a FS design on par with VPP, SPV, or even the really refined Horst links, for
under 1,000 then you have a marketable product, I feel. Seems all the good stuff goes for around
$1500 a frame, plus the $400-$800 for forks.

Good luck.

Chris
 
The market place has room for another full suspension design, however, unless it is wonderful it
will make the designer or manufacture no real profits for years. Only the big companies and
established names, Trek, Santa Cruz, Intense, Giant, etc, can bring a new design to market and
expect it to sell well the first few years. Most consumers of FS frames want to be assured the
pivots and frame members will not wear out and/or break in an un-reasonable amount of time. Also
consumers do not want to buy a frame a manufacture that stops producing replacement parts because
they go out of business.

Your original post also mentioned the possibility of having to use a proprietary fork design. I
think that would be the death blow for your product. Many people I know are very loyal to their
brand and would be un-willing to gamble on two new designs at once. Also without years of experience
in the design and manufacture of suspension forks and millions of dollars of R & D and reliability
testing can any company bring a fork design to market that will do well.

Don't forget to budget in the money needed to sponser racers for a couple of years and the libility
insurance you will need when someone rides on of your bikes off of a 12 story building and blames
you for their idiocy.
 
"Raymo853" <[email protected]> writes:

> The market place has room for another full suspension design, however, unless it is wonderful it
> will make the designer or manufacture no real profits for years. Only the big companies and
> established names, Trek, Santa Cruz, Intense, Giant, etc, can bring a new design to market and
> expect it to sell well the first few years. Most consumers of FS frames want to be assured the
> pivots and frame members will not wear out and/or break in an un-reasonable amount of time. Also
> consumers do not want to buy a frame a manufacture that stops producing replacement parts because
> they go out of business.
>
> Your original post also mentioned the possibility of having to use a proprietary fork design. I
> think that would be the death blow for your product. Many people I know are very loyal to their
> brand and would be un-willing to gamble on two new designs at once. Also without years of
> experience in the design and manufacture of suspension forks and millions of dollars of R & D and
> reliability testing can any company bring a fork design to market that will do well.

It isn't two new designs, it's one integrated design. Neither bit will work properly in isolation
from the other. However, it may be that as you say the market won't buy this.

Having said that, you wouldn't put Ford front suspension on a Porsche; you wouldn't even put Lotus
front suspension on a Porsche. We expect good cars to be built as integrated chassis, with all parts
dependent on interactions with all others. Sooner or later bikes are going to be built that way
because it's inevitably better. But you're probably right that a new entrant into the market can't
make that change of mindset.

--
[email protected] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

;; Friends don't send friends HTML formatted emails.
 
> I expect people who have been reading the silly questions I've been asking over the past few
> months will have guessed I've been working on a new full suspension design. I'm not going to
> discuss details of the design at this stage because I haven't decided whether to apply for patents
> (yes, it _is_ different enough to be patentable). My question is, is there room in the market for
> yet another full suspension design?
>
> I've ditched the more left-field ideas I was playing with in favour of something which is
> practicably and economically manufacturable; the welding should actually be somewhat less complex
> than on many current full suspension designs (fewer frame components); so it should not be any
> more expensive to build than other limited production full suspension frames.
>
> The design is optimised for cross-country, especially very technical cross country; it's not a
> downhill design. Although it would be possible to deliver it frame only, the front and rear
> suspension systems are designed together to work together and the bike would not work nearly as
> well with a conventional fork. The basic geometry is similar to a family of designs which has been
> very successful, although with a tweak to address a particular failing of that family.
>
> It looks radically different. There's no question of you mistaking this design from any angle for
> any current design. So from the looks point of view it is marketable. It will also work
> substantially better in some conditions than current designs, so from the tech point of view it
> should be marketable. But the components needed to deliver the concept are not cheap so it's
> probably going to need to retail in the US$2500-US$3500 range.
>
> At this stage I have a number of options, from least to most risky/rewarding:
>
> * Treat the idea as yet another air-dream and forget about it
>
> * Publish the details on the Internet in the hope someone picks it up and runs with it
>
> * Apply for patents and try to flog the concept to an existing manufacturer
>
> * Get together with some engineering friends locally and start manufacturing
>
> Any advice?
>
> Oh, and, before you ask, no I don't have a prototype yet.

What are its drawbacks, or is it just better than everything else on the market? If it is better
than everything else, patent your ideas and contact the largest frame manufacturers ASAP.

I've always thought that a full suspension frame with suspension that stiffened the harder you
pedaled would be an excellent design. When climbing: suspension locked. When descending: plush ride.
If you can do something like this and make it light then I'd say you have a winner.

Dave
 
"onefred" <[email protected]> writes:

> > I expect people who have been reading the silly questions I've been asking over the past few
> > months will have guessed I've been working on a new full suspension design. I'm not going to
> > discuss details of the design at this stage because I haven't decided whether to apply for
> > patents (yes, it _is_ different enough to be patentable). My question is, is there room in the
> > market for yet another full suspension design?
>
[snip]
>
> What are its drawbacks, or is it just better than everything else on the market? If it is better
> than everything else, patent your ideas and contact the largest frame manufacturers ASAP.

It does have drawbacks inherent in the design (not many) but following the advice given by others
I'm not going to discuss them because it would give too much away.

> I've always thought that a full suspension frame with suspension that stiffened the harder you
> pedaled would be an excellent design. When climbing: suspension locked. When descending: plush
> ride. If you can do something like this and make it light then I'd say you have a winner.

The Klein Mantra has that feature. It's gone out of production now, mainly because

(a) front suspension dive under braking combined with forward weight transfer caused the already
steep steering angle to steepen sharply under downhill braking which scared the sh!t out of a
lot of people;

(b) the bottom bracket moved quite perceptibly with relation to the seat, which many people found
distracting.

Of course all full suspension bikes have fault (a) to a degree but the Mantra had it particularly
badly because its steering angle was already steep and because the suspension pivot is relatively
close to the head tube, causing changes in suspension attitude to have an unusually severe effect on
the steering angle.

All URT bikes have fault (b) to a degree but the Mantra was the most extreme example so far of a
high pivot URT, with the pivot further from the bottom bracket than on any other design I'm familiar
with, and thus had it worst.

Having said that, while people who hated the Mantra really hated it, a lot of people really loved it
and people whose opinions I respect have described it as the best full-suspension cross country
design so far.

Note that the rear suspension on a high pivot URT doesn't actually lock when you stand up - in fact,
the suspension travel is still there and the suspension will still work. But the feel of the
suspension changes dramatically and many people feel that it has locked. Bob is also usually less
than on other suspension designs because of the fixed chain line, meaning that chain tension has no
effect on suspension travel.

--
[email protected] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

;; Friends don't send friends HTML formatted emails.
 
I don't know much about UK patent law, but I do know a little bit about U.S. patent law. In the
U.S., it's the first inventor of an idea that has the rights to it, not the first to patent. That
being said, if you were to publish in a fashion that shows when you invented your design, you would
be protected so long as you can prove that you are working on a patentable design. The best way to
do that is to put dates and "patent pending" on all of your notes, drawings and any product you
manufacture. So long as you're "working on it", you own it.

I think that doing this and disclosing your design on the internet would be the best bet because I
expect that your design actually is full of flaws that you never though of. Until it is peer
reviewed, you will not get these flaws ironed out let alone identified and you will be destined to
failure. As an example of this in practice, check out the history of the enigma machine.

p.s. if it's truly a good design, it may also be applicable to motorcycles, both on and off road.

-Andy B.

"Simon Brooke" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
> * Treat the idea as yet another air-dream and forget about it
>
> * Publish the details on the Internet in the hope someone picks it up and runs with it
>
>
> Oh, and, before you ask, no I don't have a prototype yet.
>
> --
> [email protected] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/
>
> ;; When your hammer is C++, everything begins to look like a thumb.
 
Andy Birko wrote:

> I don't know much about UK patent law, but I do know a little bit about U.S. patent law. In the
> U.S., it's the first inventor of an idea that has the rights to it, not the first to patent. That
> being said, if you were to publish in a fashion that shows when you invented your design, you
> would be protected so long as you can prove that you are working on a patentable design. The best
> way to do that is to put dates and "patent pending" on all of your notes, drawings and any product
> you manufacture. So long as you're "working on it", you own it.
-snip-

Oh, I get it. That's why we recognize Antonio Meucci as the inventor of the telephone (1857),
despite Bell's having patented (1876) first, right?

--
Andrew Muzi www.yellowjersey.org Open every day since 1 April, 1971
 
"A Muzi" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Andy Birko wrote:
>
> > I don't know much about UK patent law, but I do know a little bit about
U.S.
> > patent law. In the U.S., it's the first inventor of an idea that has the rights to it, not the
> > first to patent.

>
> Oh, I get it. That's why we recognize Antonio Meucci as the inventor of the telephone (1857),
> despite Bell's having patented (1876) first, right?
>
> --
>

Did Meucci go after Bell or even pursue getting a patent at the time he invented it? I don't know
the state of patent law in 1857, do you?

-Andy B.
 
"Andy Birko" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
>
> I think that doing this and disclosing your design on the internet would
be
> the best bet because I expect that your design actually is full of flaws that you never though of.
> Until it is peer reviewed, you will not get
these
> flaws ironed out let alone identified and you will be destined to failure. As an example of this
> in practice, check out the history of the enigma machine.
>
> > * Treat the idea as yet another air-dream and forget about it
> >
> > * Publish the details on the Internet in the hope someone picks it up and runs with it
> >
> >

Hey, one more thing about patenting your design. Once patented, it's up to you to defend your
rights. This effectively means hiring a lawyer to do this which costs money. If there's lot's of
money to be had with your patent, it wouldn't be difficult to find a lawyer willing to work on
contingency, but if there isn't, you've got to pay by the hour. Not too many companies have struck
it rich in the bike industry...in fact, most have gone under.

By the time all is said and done, will the $$ you recover be worth the effort?

-Andy B.
 
A Muzi <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> Andy Birko wrote:
>
> > I don't know much about UK patent law, but I do know a little bit about U.S. patent law. In the
> > U.S., it's the first inventor of an idea that has the rights to it, not the first to patent.
> -snip-
>
> Oh, I get it. That's why we recognize Antonio Meucci as the inventor of the telephone (1857),
> despite Bell's having patented (1876) first, right?

Andy B is right...if you can meet the legal standard of demonstrating that you came to the idea
independenly and before the other inventor submitted his patent application, you have prior art and
can invalidate the patent. Meucci's case for fraud was never decided because he died during the
trial, IIRC.

In the USA there's also a 12-month limit between public disclosure of the invention and patent
application. So if Simon does make a prototype and show it, he'll start a one-year clock on any
patent apps.

IANAL, so I can't give legal advice, which this isn't.

JLS
 
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