Does the world have room for another full suspension design?

[David Kerber]

In article <[email protected]>, [email protected] says...
>
> "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.

I believe that's a relatively recent change. IIRC, for many years the rights went to "first to
file", not "first to invent".

> > 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?

If the method of operation was different enough, it wouldn't matter.

...

--
Dave Kerber Fight spam: remove the ns_ from the return address before replying!

REAL programmers write self-modifying code.

 

[David Kerber]

In article <[email protected]>, [email protected] says...
> 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

Invalidating the other guy's patent doesn't give you the patent, though. It just lets you use the
technique without having to license it.

--
Dave Kerber Fight spam: remove the ns_ from the return address before replying!

REAL programmers write self-modifying code.

 

[Simon Brooke]

"Andy Birko" <[email protected]> writes:

> "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?

Just so. At best a gamble... It's a fun idea but in the end it will probably end up an air-dream. It
would take a lot of money which I don't really have, and, as you say, is unlikely to really fly;
there is only room for just so many boutique bike builders, and the design is probably too
unconventional to be popular. Still, I may build a prototype just for the hell of it.

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

;; of 90+ years of protection, but a cure for cancer, only 14? -- user 'Tackhead', in /.
discussion of copyright law, 22/05/02

 

[Gary Young]

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.

I'm speaking well beyond my competence, but one idea I haven't seen floated yet is to have a lawyer
draft a confidentiality agreement that would allow you to shop the idea around to a few
manufacturers without having to let the world at large in on the idea through a patent application.
Though I don't know UK law, you would probably have some protection if a manufacturer looked your
idea over, sent you away, and then copied it -- you go to court and show that you presented the idea
to the manufacturer.

 

[Rosco]

> I'm speaking well beyond my competence, but one idea I haven't seen floated yet is to have a
> lawyer draft a confidentiality agreement that would allow you to shop the idea around to a few
> manufacturers without having to let the world at large in on the idea through a patent
> application. Though I don't know UK law, you would probably have some protection if a manufacturer
> looked your idea over, sent you away, and then copied it -- you go to court and show that you
> presented the idea to the manufacturer.

You might find it difficult to get a manufacturer to sign such an agreement, if the company does
design of their own. It essentially compromises their internal staff's design flexibility going
forward. On the other hand, contract manufacturers and custom builders probably deal with this sort
of thing on a regular basis.

 

[Onefred]

Will your typical bike mechanic be able to work on it using his current toolset?

Dave

 

[Simon Brooke]

"onefred" <[email protected]> writes:

> Will your typical bike mechanic be able to work on it using his current toolset?

Yes. Apart from the frame and fork there are no custom components. The pivots in the frame and fork
could use either bushes or bearings, but there's nothing very special about either. The bike uses
two identical air suspension units, but although the earlier plans called for quite heavily
customised units this is one of the areas I've simplified - Fox Float R units would do.

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

[ This .sig intentionally left blank ]

 

[Ryan Cousineau]

In article <[email protected]>,
Simon Brooke <[email protected]> wrote:

> "onefred" <[email protected]> writes:
>
> > Will your typical bike mechanic be able to work on it using his current toolset?
>
> Yes. Apart from the frame and fork there are no custom components. The pivots in the frame and
> fork could use either bushes or bearings, but there's nothing very special about either. The bike
> uses two identical air suspension units, but although the earlier plans called for quite heavily
> customised units this is one of the areas I've simplified - Fox Float R units would do.

So, which variation of a swingarm front suspension are you looking at: Parker's RADD (as seen on the
Yamaha GTS1000), Bimota's Tesi, or BMW's Telelever?

Linked front and rear suspension, by any chance?

--
Ryan Cousineau, [email protected] http://www.sfu.ca/~rcousine President, Fabrizio Mazzoleni Fan Club

 

[Simon Brooke]

Ryan Cousineau <[email protected]> writes:

> In article <[email protected]>, Simon Brooke
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > "onefred" <[email protected]> writes:
> >
> > > Will your typical bike mechanic be able to work on it using his current toolset?
> >
> > Yes. Apart from the frame and fork there are no custom components. The pivots in the frame and
> > fork could use either bushes or bearings, but there's nothing very special about either. The
> > bike uses two identical air suspension units, but although the earlier plans called for quite
> > heavily customised units this is one of the areas I've simplified - Fox Float R units would do.
>
> So, which variation of a swingarm front suspension are you looking at: Parker's RADD (as seen on
> the Yamaha GTS1000), Bimota's Tesi, or BMW's Telelever?
>
> Linked front and rear suspension, by any chance?

Well, Telelever, from what I've seen of it, is effectively an unequal armed girder fork linkage not
dissimilar to the Whyte Plus 4 in pushbike technology; the Tesi and RADD systems are technically
similar with hub centre steering on a long swing-arm, not dissimilar to a Citroen 2cv. That would be
quite difficult to do on a push bike, both because it would be hard to prevent the swing arm fouling
the cranks and because both the hub and the linkage would be very special and expensive to make.
You'd also have quite limited steering.

Linked front and rear suspension I've discussed on this group earlier. You can, a la 2CV, cause the
rear suspension to extend when the front is compressed. This gives a stable platform over bumps, but
if the front compresses under braking and causes the reat to extend then you end up with a
terrifyingly unstable platform. The other thing you can do with linked front and rear is to cause
the rear suspension to retract under braking.

Consider that when a bicycle brakes heavily the weight vector of the rider swings forward, putting
more load on the front suspension and less on the back. So the front tends to dive and the back
tends to extend, further shifting the riders centre of gravity forward and aggravating the risk of
the rider going over the bars.

With a leading link fork it's pretty much a no brainer to set the suspension up so that the front
will actually rise under braking forces. If you now have a 2CV style linkage, then as the front
rises so the rear will retract, tending to move rider weight back and thus counteract the over-the-
handlebars effect, while still having the stable platform effect of extending the back when the
front hits a bump - best of both worlds.

Yes, I would like to do this. It would require hydraulicly coupled hydropneumatic suspension units
at both ends of the bike. My design was originally conceived to have this feature (together with
monoblades both front and rear and a gearbox in the bottom bracket) but these are all features I've
now abandoned as too complex at least for iteration one.

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

;; Woz: 'All the best people in life seem to like LINUX.' ;;
<URL:http://www.woz.org/woz/cresponses/response03.html

 

[A Muzi]

>>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.

> "A Muzi" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected]...
>>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 Birko wrote:
> 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?

I have absolutely no idea.

My sarcasm was trying to ask if the "guy who thought of it" holds all rights, then why bother to
patent at all??? Are you saying that patents have no meaning?

Why do people go to great lengths to establish patent rights if someone who claims to have thought
about it earlier has some kind of "right", absent a patent??

--
Andrew Muzi www.yellowjersey.org Open every day since 1 April, 1971

 

[A Muzi]

James Scott wrote:

> 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

I stand corrected. It seems counterintuitive but Andy B is right. Apology for misplaced sarcasm.

--
Andrew Muzi www.yellowjersey.org Open every day since 1 April, 1971

 

[David Damerell]

Simon Brooke <[email protected]> wrote:
>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.

I presume you mean suspended bikes here, since on conventional frames I can see no reason why forks
should not remain interchangeable.
--
David Damerell <[email protected]> flcl?