Jon;
They do not have a case, HOWEVER that does not preclude them from filing
litigation papers, of which you will have to defend yourself.
I designed a trench padding machine for a client once, **DynaPad** for
cross-country pipe lines. A competitor filed a suit against the product
which took 4 years to settle, claiming patent infringement, we were
in-the-right, deemed not to be infringement, but still cost $100,000 to
defend in court.
Not to mention the liability if someone builds them and their use causes a
catastrophic accident.
Just my $0.02
L. John
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jon" <jon@twistedbits.net>
To: "Dakota Mailing List" <dakota-truck@buffnet.net>
Sent: Thursday, August 03, 2000 4:19 PM
Subject: DML: DML and Patent violation problem
>
>
>
> 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.
>
>
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