Thread: Bicycling
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Old 04-07-2012, 08:51 PM
  #10  
uvuflier
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Joined APC: Oct 2010
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Originally Posted by JamesNoBrakes View Post
..sigh, specialized has done a lot for advocacy, supporting trails, and many other causes within cycling. Yes, they protect their work like any company would. There were a few spec. employees a while back that came up with an idea for a bike frame that was rejected by specialized, but the problem was that they came up with it using company resources and presenting it as "work" within the company. The company then owns said idea and even if they decide to not produce it, they own the rights to it. Those employees tried to start their own company producing the frame idea. Specialized goes after things like this, as would most businesses. There were some other issues with names of products, and yes some of these things sounded like they went a little too far, but again, they've done a lot of good for the cycling community.

Specialized was also partnering with Fox when Stratos was trying to sell their Inertia-Valve idea, except that Stratos tried to cover the patent under an obscure off-road motorsport patent, while Fox protected it under a cycling patent, and Stratos imploded at the same time due to many many other issues, but Fox and Specialized get some of the blame for this, despite Stratos simply being poor/inept at protecting their work. Stratos imploded around this time due to improperly machined crowns that were far thinner than they were supposed to be, seals that were out of spec due to a change in suppliers and dropping the ball, other issues that ruined the perception of the company, mishandling R&D and product development, and many many customer service aspects.

I used to work in a shop, and ANY of the big companies are just as good/bad as the next. Giant, Trek, Specialized, etc. I got lots of stories of each one of these copying or borrowing someone else's ideas and making only minor changes that are questionable from a patent point of view (patent lawyers are gold for these companies).
The one that gets me is NoTubes and Roval.

I plan on getting this:

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