Not a lot of details at this stage as both parties are perhaps understandably keeping quiet and digesting the ramifications of the court filing made on Monday. But, as reported by Bicycle Retailer and Industry news Knolly, based out of Vancouver, Canada, has filed a suit against Intense (US) claiming they have knowledge that Intense have examined Knolly bikes and then infringed their patent, granted in 2014.
“Knolly claims that Intense infringes on a patent granted to Knolly’s CEO and chief designer, Noel Buckley, titled “rear suspension system for bicycles.” The patent, US 10,363,988, was filed in 2014 and granted Aug. 7, 2019.”
The patent relates to many aspects of the rear suspension and frame design but in particular to this case one factor involves the seat tube intersecting the downtube ahead fo the bottom bracket, which is a design feature that is specified in the Knolly patent.
Knolly alleges that the Intense models that are in breach of this aspect of the patent are Tracer, the Carbine, the Tazer e-bike, the Primer 29, Primer S and Primer 27.5.
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The suit was filed Monday and Knolly are asking for a jury to decide the outcome.
Seat tube well ahead of the BB on the Knolly WardenBB area from Intense Primer 29
A design and rider benefit of the seat tube meeting the frame ahead of the BB is that the seat tube can be straight and continuous allowing for seatposts to be inserted much deeper in the tube. Among other things, this allows designers to create a low standover height and use very long dropper posts.
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Mark has been riding mountain bikes for over 30 years and co-owns Singletrack, where he's been publisher for 25 years. While his official title might be Managing Director, his actual job description is "whatever needs doing" – from wrangling finances and keeping the lights on to occasionally remembering to ride bikes for fun rather than just work. He's seen the sport evolve from rigid forks to whatever madness the industry dreams up next, and he's still not entirely sure what "gravel" is. When he's not buried in spreadsheets or chasing late invoices, he's probably thinking about his next ride.
5 thoughts on “Knolly asks for Jury to decide on alleged Intense patent breach”
Wonder if they’ll come after Canfield for their Jedi and Yelli Screamy – I had the original design of the latter which though hard tail definitely had seat post into downtube ahead of bottom bracket…though since they’d stopped making those 2011 models by 2014 when the patent was filed, it might be a bit hard to sue!
Most Unified Rear Triangle designs would fall into that camp then – the BB was often well behind where the seat tube and downtube met.
All Transitions and Santa Cruz FS bikes also have offset seat tubes. Transition even list the extent of the offset in their geo charts. Odd to go after one brand, unless they see Intense as a soft touch, and then can chase others having set a precedent?
This is the dumbest patent in the bike history. I guess Noel got encouraged when he dodged Specialized’s with those thousand bearings and links, and decided to see how far could he go before someone traveled up north to slap him with an elk.
There are at least 40 different bikes manufactured before any Knolly ones with seat tubes intersecting the downtube before the BB. Just take a look at the “Obscure suspension systems” at Ridemonkey. You can easily find 20 different brands sporting this design, and they are all from the last century.
Wonder if they’ll come after Canfield for their Jedi and Yelli Screamy – I had the original design of the latter which though hard tail definitely had seat post into downtube ahead of bottom bracket…though since they’d stopped making those 2011 models by 2014 when the patent was filed, it might be a bit hard to sue!
Most Unified Rear Triangle designs would fall into that camp then – the BB was often well behind where the seat tube and downtube met.
All Transitions and Santa Cruz FS bikes also have offset seat tubes. Transition even list the extent of the offset in their geo charts. Odd to go after one brand, unless they see Intense as a soft touch, and then can chase others having set a precedent?
This is the dumbest patent in the bike history. I guess Noel got encouraged when he dodged Specialized’s with those thousand bearings and links, and decided to see how far could he go before someone traveled up north to slap him with an elk.
There are at least 40 different bikes manufactured before any Knolly ones with seat tubes intersecting the downtube before the BB. Just take a look at the “Obscure suspension systems” at Ridemonkey. You can easily find 20 different brands sporting this design, and they are all from the last century.
“to slap him with an elk”
That did make me laugh…