I thought I would post this here to see if there is anyone on the
list with any experience in this realm, so I can figure out what to
do. What do you folks think?
The short story is:
I got a message from this guy saying Rob Cobb's homemade traction
bars on the web site are in violation of their patent. I did a search
on www.uspto.gov but couldn't find their patent. I wrote back and
they said it was pending. (See the text included below for the full
correspondence.)
The page in question is:
http://dakota-truck.net/upgrades/TBARS/tbars.html
I am not sure of the exact date, but I do know that it has been
on-line since March of 1997 at the latest. According to them,
Rob's traction bars are "an exact replica". If they are just getting
their patent now, do they have a case? Does anyone have any
suggestions?
Thanks very much in advance!!
-Jon-
.---- Jon Steiger ----- jon@dakota-truck.net or jon@twistedbits.net ------.
| Affiliations: AOPA, DoD, EAA, NMA, NRA, SPA, USUA; Rec & UL Pilot - SEL |
| '92 Ram 150 4x4 V8, '96 Dakota V8, '96 Intruder 1400, '96 FireFly 447 |
`------------------------------ http://www.cs.fredonia.edu/~stei0302/ ----'
--------------------------------------------
> > >Jon,
> > >We would like to notify you that the traction bars illustrated
> > > in the page that we have fowarded, are an exact replica of
> > >our traction bars. We would like to inform you that you and
> > >the author are infringing on our patent rights.
> > >Please remove this item from
> > >your page immediatly. This is just a friendly notice, as you
> > >were probably unaware of this. We consistantly check different
> > >pages to ensure that none of our exclusive products are being
> > > duplicated in any way.
> > >
> > >If you have any questions please e mail or call 909 825 2818.
> > >Thank you,
> > >Julio Monroy
> > >Trail Sport Unlimited, Inc.
> >
> > Julio,
> >
> > Thanks for writing. You are correct, I was unaware that there were any
> > patent claims for that traction bar design. However, I have been unable to
> > find any patents filed by yourself or Trail Sport Unlimited. (I am
> > assuming it was filed under a different name.) Could you please write back
> > to me with the patent number to assist me in locating it? Thanks very much!
> >
>
> Jon,
> Thanks for your e mail. As of today, the patent is pending. It will be
> issued any day and at that time our company plans on
> enforcing it to it's full extent. This means that both you and Rob will be held
> liable for any damages. Just for verification do a search (you probably already
> have) under traction bars or Trail Sport and you will see that this corporation
> owns the product Rob copied.
>
> Thank you for your time,
> Julio Monroy
> Trail Sport Unlimited, Inc.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Jun 20 2003 - 11:53:15 EDT