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Little guys getting screwed

dropmachine

Turbo Monkey
Sep 7, 2001
2,922
10
Your face.
So today I saw the new Specialized SS bike, which funny enough, is pretty much exactly like the Dobermann Le Pink. Then i was thinking about the problems DW had with Giant in regards to linkage similarities, and it got me wondering if the little guys have anything they can do? Obviously legally they can't fight a bigger company since the legal fees would be prohibitive, but anything else?

Just curious.
 

Tetreault

Monkey
Nov 23, 2005
877
0
SoMeWhErE NoWhErE
sadly as you said, no, not really anything that they could do due to the absorbent legal fee's. Dobermann is kind of SOL because there is nothing patented with regards to their frame design, even though the new P-slope is essentially as close to a complete rip off as i have ever seen in a situation such as this. Even the description of what the bike is is nearly identical to how dobermann has marketed and portrayed the le pink for the last number of years. (identical geo to P3 to just with some suspension *paraphrase)

All that you can hope is that specialized fails horribly with the project due to karma, and people in the market for something like this look to dobermann or black market or other brands that went out on a limb a number of years ago to create a desired niche.

This is only adding to my out right hatred for specialized being the worst brand in the industry. ****s
 

OffCamber

Monkey
May 27, 2005
405
6
Loxahatchee, Fl
My question is, what is Specialized legal recourse outside of the US. There are multiple companies running the Horst suspension outside the US? Do they have to pay for the copyright? Serious question. If not maybe it's Karma in reverse. I don't know.
 

MrPlow

Monkey
Sep 9, 2004
628
0
Toowoomba Queensland
Ah man, I thought this was midget porn. Nothing to see here......
Must spread rep before giving JeremyR...: :D

My answer is spread the word and rat them out. And show some loyalty.
I have some Australian patents going through on my bike. But I simply cannot afford to patent in USA, then Europe. Let alone fight the big boys in court.
It is a shame that patents alone are really not enough. You need a spare half a million to fight them.
 

sbabuser

Turbo Monkey
Dec 22, 2004
1,114
55
Golden, CO
Even the description of what the bike is is nearly identical to how dobermann has marketed and portrayed the le pink for the last number of years. (identical geo to P3 to just with some suspension *paraphrase)
So Dobermann markets the Le Pink as having identical geo to a P3? I'd say Specialized is the one who should be upset... :rofl:
 

Tetreault

Monkey
Nov 23, 2005
877
0
SoMeWhErE NoWhErE
So Dobermann markets the Le Pink as having identical geo to a P3? I'd say Specialized is the one who should be upset... :rofl:
figure it out :rolleyes:

Dobermann said:
The Le Pink frame is a short travel full suspension designed to throw some big moves on the slope style coarse ... The Pinscher Geometry makes it feel like a hard-tail but plush, hard-tail riders that need the extra travel will feel right at home
Specialized said:
The P.Slope is designed to replicate the agility and snap of the hardtail P.3 chassis, while offering the extra stability and measure of control that rear suspension brings to the game ... The P.Slope shares the same geometry as the competition-proven P.3



Like.... Really?

Specialized, you're supposed to be the masters of heinous marketing and bull ****ting customers, yet not only are you essentially stealing a small companies design almost to a T, AND you describe your copied frame in a nearly similar matter?

CTRL+C must be their favourite short cut....
 
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Bikael Molton

goofy for life
Jun 9, 2003
4,010
1,146
El Lay
The two brands couldn't be further apart in size, positioning, dealer network, aesthetic.

I'm always for the underdog, but I'm not sure if the Specialized bike threatens Dobermann.

Has DW been set back by Giant? He's managed to expand his suspensions designs from 1 brand... to 6?
 

William42

fork ways
Jul 31, 2007
3,908
634
I agree with hacktastic.

Also, concentric BB bikes have been around for awhile. Its not like this is some sort of new crazy tech. And i'm pretty sure I've see shocks going through the seattube on specialized bikes for a few years. dobermann hardly invented a concentric BB short travel slopestyle bike that is progressive and rides like a hardtail most of the time. maestro and dw link is a whole different ballgame. This is something that you'd see being made in somebodies garage.
 

Jm_

sled dog's bollocks
Jan 14, 2002
18,852
9,557
AK
No kidding. They are copying a design that Next and every other major manufacturer has tried? No one can make a patent stick on something that isn't original, and just because you weld it out of different material or with slightly different angles doesn't make it original. To that extent, specialized can make bikes like that P3 and others that do not require a special patent (like a horst-link, etc). Clever companies even get around these patents, but we shouldn't go rewarding stupidity or lack of development.

I was hoping for a post about leprechauns.
 

Sandwich

Pig my fish!
Staff member
May 23, 2002
21,031
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borcester rhymes
Come on man, are you surprised? It's specialized. They rip off a design and then squish the designers. They did it with the epic, the horst link, the id valve, and others I'm sure.

The take home though is that this isn't really a rip. That would be like saying any hardtail made after the first hardtail is a ripoff. People will still buy the dobermann because it's an awesome bike and dobermann is a cool company. Kona ripped off the Cove G-spot/Arrow DS3 design in 2001 or so, and nobody seemed to care then.

I'm just excited to see more cheap concentric pivot bikes. I would love to own one as a cross jumper/park bike. I find that it's much easier to get to highland than it is to go real DHing.
 

William42

fork ways
Jul 31, 2007
3,908
634
Come on man, are you surprised? It's specialized. They rip off a design and then squish the designers. They did it with the epic, the horst link, the id valve, and others I'm sure.

The take home though is that this isn't really a rip. That would be like saying any hardtail made after the first hardtail is a ripoff. People will still buy the dobermann because it's an awesome bike and dobermann is a cool company. Kona ripped off the Cove G-spot/Arrow DS3 design in 2001 or so, and nobody seemed to care then.

I'm just excited to see more cheap concentric pivot bikes. I would love to own one as a cross jumper/park bike. I find that it's much easier to get to highland than it is to go real DHing.
Are you going to slam dobermann too? because I guarantee you that if I spend 5 minutes searching, I can come up with at least three companies that were doing concentric bb short travel slopestyle bikes before dobermann was. Hell, some of them probably even had shock rate altering linkages. I am also confidant I can find bikes *made by specialized* that were driving the shock through the seattube before dobermann was even a company. There is literally nothing new or original about dobermanns design. Its not a "rippoff" when you have the designs sitting in a file cabinet for 20 years, you pull them out and think "hmm, I bet we could tweak this so that it would ride like a hardtail, and there seems to be a demand for that these days," when it turns out another company decided something similar 3 years ago.

This isn't a conspiracy theory. Specialized is not out to crush the little guy. I have literally no affiliation with specialized, i don't own any specialized products (save my current gloves), but the constant conspiracy theories about how evil specialized are a little bit nuts.
 

Sandwich

Pig my fish!
Staff member
May 23, 2002
21,031
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reading comprehension guy. The second paragraph states "The take home though is that this isn't really a rip. That would be like saying any hardtail made after the first hardtail is a ripoff."

So no, this isn't a ripoff necessarily, but specialized makes a happy habit of ripping of smaller companies.
 

no skid marks

Monkey
Jan 15, 2006
2,511
29
ACT Australia
Good thread topic, not the best example.
Off topic, is the Specialized steel? Doubt it, I'd pick theother one myself mainly for material choice.
I'll dig this thread back up if they ever copy the Zerode. I think it was Specialized that aparently bought one.
Only so many ways to skin a cat as far as keeping a small consentric pivot bike light, low and with the right shock leverage curve. They could've mounted shock to downtube and lowered seat stay a bit. Probably a better design for seat hight adjustability, but maybe at the cost of stiffness or weight.
 
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bikerpunk98199

Turbo Monkey
Apr 24, 2005
1,313
0
the hood
There is no way in hell I would by the doberman, or any other bike similar, instead of the Spec. I honestly don't care about the history and all behind this. Just look at the two bikes together though, one Does look better than the other, it just happens to be red and have a S on it.
 

4130biker

PM me about Tantrum Cycles!
May 24, 2007
3,882
447
They did it with the epic, the horst link, the id valve, and others I'm sure.
can you elaborate on these three? Honestly just interested in a little big s history with respect to patents, etc. I'm interested to see what happens when Horst patent runs out.
 

Sandwich

Pig my fish!
Staff member
May 23, 2002
21,031
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id Valve vs. stratos:
http://www.ridemonkey.com/forums/f19/specialized-crushes-stratos-*unconfirmed*-165385/
http://forums.mtbr.com/downhill-freeride/stratos-sued-out-business-225008.html
Specialized used their lawyer pool to cease and desist stratos, who was making id valves which were actually licensed from a small off road truck shock company, iirc. With virtually no other customers at the time, stratos folded.

Epic vs Merida:
http://www.retrobike.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=129093
Actually, this is a bad example as it turns out Merida has a significant share of specialized. I could have sworn there was a really small company that initially had a design like that, and specialized effectively "took" it.

The horst link is a bit more vague. Specialized effectively bought it from Horst leitner in 1998. They then used their considerable might to squish everybody who had already been using the design without argument for the last 4 years. They had already been using the fsr system for at least two years before buying the patent.

extra:
http://forums.mtbr.com/california-norcal/specialized-again-760256.html

Bikerpunk, are you for real? The dobermann is a hand welded cromoly, straight tubed ultra clean design. You're going to choose the aluminum specialized for no reason other than it's red? If the geometry works for you, that's one thing, but having ridden a pinscher before, the frame is pretty dialed. The le pink is a softtail pinscher. So, because hydroforming, you'd pick specialized?
 

William42

fork ways
Jul 31, 2007
3,908
634
id Valve vs. stratos:
http://www.ridemonkey.com/forums/f19/specialized-crushes-stratos-*unconfirmed*-165385/
http://forums.mtbr.com/downhill-freeride/stratos-sued-out-business-225008.html
Specialized used their lawyer pool to cease and desist stratos, who was making id valves which were actually licensed from a small off road truck shock company, iirc. With virtually no other customers at the time, stratos folded.

Epic vs Merida:
http://www.retrobike.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=129093
Actually, this is a bad example as it turns out Merida has a significant share of specialized. I could have sworn there was a really small company that initially had a design like that, and specialized effectively "took" it.

The horst link is a bit more vague. Specialized effectively bought it from Horst leitner in 1998. They then used their considerable might to squish everybody who had already been using the design without argument for the last 4 years. They had already been using the fsr system for at least two years before buying the patent.

extra:
http://forums.mtbr.com/california-norcal/specialized-again-760256.html
This is exactly my point. You're painting a big conspiracy theory here, and its not. Protecting your IP is not "screwing the little guy."

Inertia valve, which is sounds like specialized owned the patent for, later went on to become one of their most successful products appearing on a huge portion of their lineup, and being a major selling point on all of their most popular lines of mountain bikes. Wanting to prevent other companies from using that tech is not "screwing the little guy" and its not halting progress. Look at how much further ran with it then stratos ever could have or would have. If specialized owns the patent, more power to them.

Specialized and marida are heavily in bed together. Bad example as we both agree, why even bring it up? It certainly doesn't help your conspiracy theory.

The Horst link? Specialized paid for it fair and square. Other companies clearly saw the benefit of it, and did not invest in the patent. Thats how intellectual property works: you get control of the idea, and if you want to sell it for lots of dollars, you can. If somebody else wants to buy the patent, and lay claim to it and protect it, that's entirely acceptable. You can't claim that specialized is being an asshole by making a sound business decision. Every other company like turner had exactly the same opportunity to think "wow that looks like a good idea, I should buy that patent" that specialized did. And you can't claim that specialized would have made anywhere near as much money if there were 20 other brands using the horst link.

Moving on to your "extra": Wanna hear something interesting? It probably wont change your mind because specialized is the ultimate evil in bicycle companies apparently, but guess what: Specialized won the lawsuit. Quickly. It wasn't a "drag it out in court till the other guy runs out of money" suit. Hell, I think they only sued for a dollar, it was more of a "don't use designs that you came up with while working for us." If you're working for a company, and your contract says "we hold the rights to any designs you come up with while working for us" its probably not a great call to quit the company and begin using one of the designs that you came up with for that company. That doesn't fly in any industry. Coming out with a bicycle that is in direct competition of a company you used to work for is one thing. Using the designs that you made for that company while working for that company is a whole different story.

I've only heard of one lawsuit of specialized genuinely being retarded to a small company, which was suing some outdoor company that made a backpack called the epic or something. Which I think they dropped.

Specialized pulls some shady **** with dealers sometimes, asking them to drop other brands etc, which is pretty lame, but protecting IP is very infrequently lame.

Anyway, I'm done, I doubt there is any amount of evidence that will convince you that specialized isn't the incarnate of everything you hate about bicycles, and not just you, but probably most of the people who want a "bad guy" to hate on too. And frankly, I just don't really care. If I owned stock in specialized, or worked for them or something i might, but I don't, and its no skin off my back.
 

Sandwich

Pig my fish!
Staff member
May 23, 2002
21,031
5,921
borcester rhymes
uh, no?

In a big victory for Volagi, the judge threw out that claim, leaving Choi’s and Forsman’s ownership of the intellectual property undisputed in their disc-brake-equipped carbon road bike with suspension features. In total, eight of Specialized’s nine claims were thrown out, leaving only the breach of contract claim to be decided by the jury, and it found a breach only in the case of Choi, not Forsman.
http://velonews.competitor.com/2012/01/news/an-expensive-dollar-volagi-owes-specialized-1_203443

In short, Specialized tried to crush Volgogi with legal fees, they fought back, and won, except for one of the creators technically breaching contract, to which they awarded specialized one dollar, instead of the 41,500$ they sued for.

For somebody with "nothing vested" in specialized, you care a lot about defending them.

As far as the id valve goes, the stories I read basically suggest that specialized was successful in doing to Stratos what they tried to do to Volgina, which is to crush their business with a massive lawsuit before it even goes to trial. Since stratos was already pretty much going out of business when they in-licensed the technology, it was significantly easier just to pack up and go home.

But just like I won't accept that Specialized dances around with flowers in its hair, petting bunnies and planting trees, you won't accept that Specialized is a pitch fork wielding, apple-like patent trolling monster, so I suggest we agree to disagree.
 

iRider

Turbo Monkey
Apr 5, 2008
5,648
3,089
I've only heard of one lawsuit of specialized genuinely being retarded to a small company, which was suing some outdoor company that made a backpack called the epic or something. Which I think they dropped.
What about suing Mountain Cycle for naming their CX bike Stumptown (after the nickname of the city they were located in = Portland) because it was too close to their Stumpjumper???? If they really believed that there was a chance that one of their customers would accidentally buy a CX bike instead of a trail bike then they must think only retarded people ride their bikes. :rant:
 

bikerpunk98199

Turbo Monkey
Apr 24, 2005
1,313
0
the hood
Bikerpunk, are you for real? The dobermann is a hand welded cromoly, straight tubed ultra clean design. You're going to choose the aluminum specialized for no reason other than it's red? If the geometry works for you, that's one thing, but having ridden a pinscher before, the frame is pretty dialed. The le pink is a softtail pinscher. So, because hydroforming, you'd pick specialized?
Lifetime Warranty. Could careless about a bike being hand welded, to be honest. For me, it just looks prettier.
 

marshalolson

Turbo Monkey
May 25, 2006
1,770
519
If anything, specialized ripping off dobermann's design will be the best thing to ever happen to dobermann.
 

gemini2k

Turbo Monkey
Jul 31, 2005
3,526
117
San Francisco
I love when people pretend these designs and frame ideas are novel/new/innovative.

Newsflash, somewhere, someplace, EVERY (worthwhile) geometry configuration has been tried. NO geometry numbers are innovative, period, that includes suspension travel. Add that to the fact that concentric single pivots have been around since the dawn of suspension bikes and well, yeah, you get the idea.

Edit:

Just for arguments sake, didn't Kona used to make a cowen signature full suspension jump bike with a concentric pivot like 6-7 years ago?
 
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dropmachine

Turbo Monkey
Sep 7, 2001
2,922
10
Your face.
I love how a forum built on people flipping out over the most inane, inconsequential bike details turns around completely and say that the Dobermann and the Kona are the same because they shared the same main pivot. lolz.

The Specialized is pretty much a carbon copy of the dob. Pierced seattube and all. Its weird from a company that says FSR is the reincarnation of Jebus to pop over to something completely different, and produce a bike thats a copy of anothers for a segment of the riding scene they haven't touched before no? Not sayin Spec is evil or anything, cause I don't believe that in the least. Just sayin it seems pretty shameless here, and kinda obvious that they seem to have xeroxed another companies bike that was seeing a bit of success in a riding segment where Specialized had nothing.

Anyways, point of the whole thing was just curious if little guys had any sort of leverage when something like that happens, but I guess not. All comes down to lawyers and bucks I suppose.
 

Jm_

sled dog's bollocks
Jan 14, 2002
18,852
9,557
AK
Are you going to slam dobermann too? because I guarantee you that if I spend 5 minutes searching, I can come up with at least three companies that were doing concentric bb short travel slopestyle bikes before dobermann was. Hell, some of them probably even had shock rate altering linkages. I am also confidant I can find bikes *made by specialized* that were driving the shock through the seattube before dobermann was even a company. There is literally nothing new or original about dobermanns design. Its not a "rippoff" when you have the designs sitting in a file cabinet for 20 years, you pull them out and think "hmm, I bet we could tweak this so that it would ride like a hardtail, and there seems to be a demand for that these days," when it turns out another company decided something similar 3 years ago.
Like Arrow. I remember that they did a short-travel dual slalom concentric pivot bike. The idea is not original. Not even close.
 

Tetreault

Monkey
Nov 23, 2005
877
0
SoMeWhErE NoWhErE
I love how a forum built on people flipping out over the most inane, inconsequential bike details turns around completely and say that the Dobermann and the Kona are the same because they shared the same main pivot. lolz.

The Specialized is pretty much a carbon copy of the dob. Pierced seattube and all. Its weird from a company that says FSR is the reincarnation of Jebus to pop over to something completely different, and produce a bike thats a copy of anothers for a segment of the riding scene they haven't touched before no?
that pretty well sums up my exact thoughts on this situation as well
 

Jm_

sled dog's bollocks
Jan 14, 2002
18,852
9,557
AK
And here is a post from a Stratos employee in the thread that Sandwich posted. The thread really gets going on page 10. Stratos didn't fail because Specialized sued em, Stratos failed because they were a crappy company in just about every way. Keep reading through the remaining pages for further posts on why. It becomes obvious quick, and whether or not the Specialized thing was "fair" really doesn't have much to do with it, all of the other information points to the fact that they were a horrible company.
Smack smack smacky smackity smack smack.

Okay, jumping to the end of the thing from the middle, I'm gonna miss [for this post] half the story, but here's what I can remember from way, 'way back:

Mike actually came up with the concept for the lockout in the "LockShock" that became the "StrataShock" in University Engineering. He was playing around with a compression locking circuit that he tested out with the infamous Bong.

Yep, the Bong was the first 'Shock' he actually perfected - it was part of his graduate degree project.

No lie.

Now, he takes the idea of the shock to some friends [guys who actually know more about business and such] and they get some local SB investors [Wright Watling - a guy I know for a completely different reason] and some other more famous names, and get some startup capital.

But, before the thing can go forwards, the Money wants to see some decent purchase orders. Demand. Gimme's.

So, Mike and Dave and the other guys go to Interbike. I'm thinking it's 1994.

They run across engineers from Trek, who are having a very bad day trying to figure out how to fix the main problem with the Y-bike.

They tell Dave and Mike "We know - it sucks - it's a yo-yo, for krissakes" and Mike and Dave say - "We can fix that" and the LockShock is born, fully grown, as the Strata Shock.

Orders pile in and the company starts to build up and yadda yadda.

Money becomes free **** growing on trees. They sponsor a Pro DH team with Shaums March and Mountain Cycle and some others. Leanne Hurtig takes over the management of the team [or the sponsorship management side of it] but things get fuzzy [for me] from there for awhile.

They design coil shocks [Helix] and the Killer Fork - Superstar 6 - for which i would whore myself out to do just about anything in order to get my hands on!

6" dual crown with compression and rebound damping adjustments, positions sensitive damping, 1 inch preload each leg, progressive double stage springs, etc etc. When the competition was Zyzzyx.

All machined from billet. The stanchions and sliders were gun-drilled. You guys have ANY idea how hard that is? How much material is used up? Not from Tubing [that was later].

Thing sold for around $1200. It was a work of art. I still want one just to put on the wall.

But - it cost about $500 to make - in machine time, materials, assembly.

I'm not getting into a manufacture cost vs. profit margin arguement - let's just say, that in order to cover design, maketing research [racing and the bike show and ads and whatnot] it should have sold for about $2000.

Not profitable. In fact, Money-Losing. The OEM pricing was also along the same lines of zero growth. The company went broke - the investors [see Money above] walked away. In their world, a write-off on investment was actually a break-even proposition.

Mike ended up with a free machine shop and a bunch of raw material, some good assemblers and a few machinists.

Oh, and John Stump, who did most of the design work from then on.

Now, Dave was the guy in charge of all major accounts. He made sure that Trek, Hotlines UK, Germany all got their products at the right time and in the right boxes.

He made the sales, soothed sore feelings, fixed glitches. His title was Director of Sales.

I worked for him. Domestic, Wholesale and Retail Sales. This was expanded to include Domestic Marketing, which was the entire race sponsorship program.

After the first year, I got a new title, from Sales to Director of Domestic Sales. I don't think I got a raise, but I did get a little bit of the pie.

It was the best year I ever had in the Bike Biz. That's when I ran the race effort and got to meet most of you guys. Thanks for all of that.

Mike met and married Catharine.

Business wasn't flying right - product kept changing but standards weren't being met - both Dave and I had to do a lot of dancing and jumping through flaming hoops to get what we could to the folks who wanted them.

It was a constant battle. Somehow, Mike got Catharine to invest her own money into the business, thus bringing in a new partner. Although she was a CPA, she had very little experience with this kind of business.

Problems arose between people. Apparently, both Dave and I were making too much money. We got downgraded from a salaried/bonus structure to commission only. However, no guarantees were in place that product would be improved or standards would be met.

We both quit. I think it was 2001/02

The revolving door policy began. So did the tailspins.

Lacking any clear corporate vision or market strategy, they lost ground in every arena.

Now, here's where things get even more murky.

Mike made some arrangement with the Patent Holder for a particular type of Inertia Damping [I met him, but totally forget his name.]

Do a Google on RICOR. Edelbrock uses the technology.

However, unlike some other posts I've encounter recently, talks with RICOR did not enter into an agreement until about 2002-ish.

The Patent was specific, however, and applied only to Motorized Vehicles - Mike was trying to work it into the bicycle side of things when I left town for the first jaunt to Mexico.

My best guess is that he failed in due diligence with the patents that Specialized held with Fox and the loophole didn't work in his favor.

On top of that issue, they came out with the El Jefe - a shock that they acknowledged to me at my very last Interbike as a reverse engineered Avalanche shock [with some variation in size and threading and such] but were totally out of the OEM market.

With a tattered reputation and a new guy on the phone every other month, people just stopped buying the stuff.

His biz that kept the lights on was mostly prototyping miscellaneous parts and churning out some proprietary helicopter bits.

Even that wasn't enough and he moved out of the joint on Quarantina and I have no idea what he's up to today.

Dave went on to get an MBA at Laverne University and is currently a Veep at a company that handles most of eBays online advertising. I think about 60 or more people work directly for him. He's got a nice house in Montecito.

John Stump is a design engineer in Santa Monica, I think. Certainly way up the food chain.

Me? Semi-retired in a foreign country.

Thanks for listening.

Some of the above may be wrong in their order, but to the best of my memory, that's what and how things happened.

Ultimately, it is a classical business manoeuver to press a smaller company into failure in order to absorb it's assets.

In this case, a paper asset.