There was a challenge to Klein's patent, I believe by Cannondale. I'm away on the remainder of a patent trial for most of Jan. and then I'll research this issue if someone else does not know the facts.
Joe Bender-Zanoni
Great Notch NJ
<NortonMarg@aol.com>; <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>; "H.M. & S.S. Sachs" <sachs@erols.com> Sent: Wednesday, January 01, 2003 11:25 AM Subject: Re: [CR]Gary Klein anecdotes
>
> Subject: Re: [CR]Gary Klein anecdotes
>
> Jerry wrote:
>
>
> "Many people much more
> > familiar with the topic than I claim that Klein "stole" the ideas of a
> > number of students and faculty members at MIT and patented them, and was
> not
> > himself the primary originator of the design. While this may well be
> true,
> > that is neither illegal nor unusual. If other parties at MIT neither
> > applied for patents earlier nor challenged Klein's patent applications,
> then
> > they should not complain after the fact about the outcome."
>
> A requirement of a patent is novelty and applying for a patent based on
> other's work IS both illegal and unethical. It is fraud.
>
> Since I've never seen the patent application "wrap" for Klein's patent, I
> don't know whether or not Klein mentioned all the large tube frames that
> proceeded his patent application and constituted prior art.. It is
possible
> that the patent was awarded simply because the examiner did not do a
> competent job (this happens more often than you might think).
>
> Anyway, why should anyone spend the time and money to challenge the patent
> when the prior art was so well known. It was in Cannondales' best interest
> to arrive at some sort of settlement with Klein as soon as possible so
that
> there was no legal
> issue (however spurious) hanging over Cannondales' product development and
> manufacturing.
>
> Hugh Enox