Aerodynamics pioneer claims Pinarello copied his design

Aye, these things usually are though, aren't they.

Very tit-for-tat sounding. Looking forward to Victor's response!

Pinarello have responded:

"Referring to “Open letter to Cicli Pinarello SpA” published by Mr. Victor Major, CEO of Velocite Tech, on velocite- bikes.com, Cicli Pinarello states the following.

Cicli Pinarello SpA, as a leading company in the cycling sector, obviously takes Intellectual Property issues with the utmost seriousness, Pinarello itself being a patent holder.

While it is true that Mr. Major, through his Taiwanese law firm, wrote to Pinarello on July 2016, it is also true that Pinarello promptly answered (on the 4th of August), through its law firm, clearly and unmistakably pointing out that Mr. Major’s communication was lacking essential information since it did not identify which of Pinarello’s products were contested nor did it give any explanation as to why such products would allegedly infringe Mr. Major’s patents. Providing this information is not ancillary but mandatory when an infringement is alleged.

Pinarello’s patent attorneys not only asked Mr. Major’s attorneys to clarify his position, but also pointed out that Pinarello’s reply was to be expected “not earlier than mid of September 2016, provided that, in the meantime, we will have received the information mentioned above”, information that Pinarello was still waiting to receive from Mr. Major when he decided to post his “Open letter”.

In the same letter, Pinarello’s patent attorneys also brought to Mr. Major’s attention the fact that bicycles with aerodynamic frames have been on the market for years, even going so far as to provide an example.

Neither the requested information nor any reply was sent by Mr. Major in response to Pinarello’s request for clarifications, which have now been provided by Mr. Major in his “Open letter”.

Despite his own fault in not answering Pinarello’s request for clarifications, Mr. Major chose to publicly write his “Open letter” and to depict Pinarello as a sort of “thief”, who uses a patented design without permission and does not respond to legal letters.

Although Pinarello can understand that his behavior may procure Mr. Major a rise in his notoriety, that same behavior is deeply unfair, since Mr. Major himself is perfectly aware that he chose not to discuss the issue with Pinarello.

Cicli Pinarello SpA was, and is, available to discuss the matter with Mr. Major, but will not tolerate and will take appropriate actions against any unsupported allegation, explicit or implicit, of being an infringer or a “thief”."

Right this is how it is. Campagnolo paid Fran Ventoso to openly complain about disc brakes to ensure they weren’t adopted in the pro peloton as Campag were well behind Shimano and SRAM. With no MTB groupset any longer Campagnolo were scared shi*less about their own demise due to not being able to respond to the growing movement towards disc brakes on road bikes. Anyway here we are with Pinarello and a story concocted by Pinarello that a patent exists for this aero scoop by some guy called Victor. Pinarello go ahead regardless and smaller manufacturers assume that this is actually a patent. Therefore they’re scared into replicating the design into their new frames themselves. Basically this is scare tactics being played out by Pinarello. This Victor chap isn’t even real.

My experience of patents is fairly limited, but an important question is whether Velocite have actually 'reduced to practice' their idea, i.e. have they made it into a product that can be proven to do what they claim.  If not, their patent is useless.

For eg, I could write a patent for "a drug that cures cancer" but unless I can actually make the drug and prove that it does cure cancer the patent is completely unenforcable and I couldn't make a claim against someone who tried to market a real drug at a later date.

The only way to ensure that your patent is strong is to take the matter to court. This does of course favour the "big guy" who can afford decent lawyers.

I’m in the music business and run a few record labels. LVMH (more specifically one of their very large fashion labels) decided to steal one of our Artist’s tracks for a Spring/Summer campaign several years ago and had it not been for said Artist, waiting for his flight in the airport in Berlin and hearing his music suddenly blaring out of a TV we would never have known. We started legal proceedings, they were bang to rights as their in-house production team had though they could nick a track they’d heard in a club and an out of court settlement was agreed. So the little man can win against the majors.

Typical Italian mentality! Same discommucation happend to me orderig from 3T. I recived my wheelset without the QR's despite my later complainments. I wrote 3 times for them, but refering to Christmas time holidays they didn't replied any time in essence. I still didn't recive my QR's, but I don't care anymore.

I won't order from any Italian shop in the future, dispite I'm in love with Italian road bikes. Thanks for the german webshops assuming the risk!

Sounds like Velocite going for some free publicity. 

Something obvious is not patentable. If this is, is up for a court to decide.

Him, little bike company, them, multi-billion dollar luxury goods conglomerate.\

They'll wait him out then bury him in paperwork and costs.

But patents are ideas, whether they offer something or not. That's up to the IP court to determine, of course.

I think that patents are becoming a little contrived in todays computer aided design studio.

The idea that putting a bottle in a dent in the frame is some sort of major aerodynamic discovery for which world wide recognition should be the sole property of the first person to mention it would appear far fetched. 

If only the first person to stand behind a tree to avoid the wind had thought to patent that. 

Still, Pinarello... Checking people out on LinkedIn? I'm imagining their workshop being full of mugs of tea and Pirelli calendars... and lots of gaffer tape.

Replying ..opens communication and means it must defend the pinnerallo design.

Love the irony that the far east has been stealing Pinnerallo design and brand for years...so much so 'chinerallo' is now a generic term in the bike industry for copied and traced  IP.

All very interesting!
Does them having a recessed battery and bottle mount exempt them, do they have patents filed that predate Mr. Majors?

Let's have a thread all about yes/no they did/not.

But, here's the thing, he's written, they've not bothered to reply. That's poor. So very poor.