Noticed on a review of the new Intense DH bike that the VPP patent has now expired – Intense now call it something else and don’t pay SC a royalty for it any more.

Wondering if we’ll see a bunch of new designs using it. I guess Banshee and some others are pretty close to it already, and DW/Maestro are the same sort of thing but with subtle differences – but it does open it up for the likes of Canyon and YT

Misread title. Is disappoint.

Intense now call it something else and don’t pay SC a royalty for it any more.

so the price of their fs frames will be going down yeah? :naive-emoticon:

Maybe, but then there wasn’t a huge takeup when specialized horst ‘patent’ expired.

Maestro and DW are different, the SC* patent specifically covered counter rotating links. I’ve no idea how Maestro and DW differ.

*it was actually Outland that patented it and SC bought it off them, I thought it was actually a joint venture with intense?

D0NK – Member

so the price of their fs frames will be going down yeah? :naive-emoticon:

I think the royalty now goes to their marketing department, who came up with a new acronym. (It’s now called “JS-Tuned”)

thisisnotaspoon – Member

Maybe, but then there wasn’t a huge takeup when specialized horst ‘patent’ expired.
But there was some. The Patent really only applied in the US.
Transition and Cove were the noticeable adopters.

Edit: Did Norco licence it before it ran out?

AlexSimon – Member

But there was some. The Patent really only applied in the US.
Transition and Cove were the noticeable adopters.

And some brands started selling to the US which hadn’t previously

And some brands started selling to the US which hadn’t previously

Yes, Canyon and YT

And yeah, Norco licensed FSR for years

Nukeproof just went four bar too. Seems very popular for new designs to me.

Who knows what other brands will do in their next product cycles.