old_coyote_pedaller
MacRetro Rider
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There's no logic with this level of shiny-foil hat mentalism. :roll:
There's no logic with this level of shiny-foil hat mentalism. :roll:
Osella":4c7qhn0k said:I think I now understand..
By this logic, basically all bikes with a BB30 bottom bracket are Cannondales; therefore all BB30 BB bikes are also Kleins, and worth US$3000.
Retro Spud":2u81o9fe said:Osella":2u81o9fe said:I think I now understand..
By this logic, basically all bikes with a BB30 bottom bracket are Cannondales; therefore all BB30 BB bikes are also Kleins, and worth US$3000.
Your thought pattern falls apart when you hit the Trek era ... and the Dale becomes the more desirable brand. :facepalm:
danson67":2u4i7kyq said:They were far from collaborating or sharing designs...at each other's throats for most of the 80s.![]()
Did you research extend to the extensive lawsuits and counter-claims between the two companies in the mid-80s?
http://openjurist.org/884/f2d/1399/klei ... tion
From what I understand, Klein sued Cannondale (and Charlie Cunningham) for breach of his '77 patent for a fat tubed, 'high efficiency' bike frame, and lost. Cannondale cited frames made by Bill Shook (American Classic), Harlan (Hi-E) and Roger Durham (Bullseye) as prior art evidence. Klein appealed and lost again on the grounds that he had conveniently failed to mention these previous builders, (and also all the other students in the team which had made aluminium frames in the MIT class he attended in 1974) in his 1977 patent application.
Klein always struck me as a genius backed up by well targeted marketing and an aggressive patent junkie legal team...among other things, he (with some via Trek) filed patents for:
----fork building methods (nothing new)
----differential chainstay designs (Columbus etc)
----the anti-suck chain device (like all the other ones already out there)
----the Klein Mantra suspension (Nobody else even tried to do that!)
and amazingly even got away with:
----a soft-tail road bike patent in 2004.
A date so late that it shows just what a pile of bulls**t and cr*p the US patent system is.
IMHO quite a bit of the extra cost of a Klein went in lawyers' fees and defending patents.
No wonder Trek dropped most of the weird sh*t as quick as they could when they bought the company and milked the high zoot brand dry in a few years...
All the best,