Folding Bikes - Does any1 know when will the patent for brompton expired in the US?

For example, when viagra first came out it has patent for like 15 yrs and now u see all kinda clone like cialis or whateva.

So for the folding mechanish of the brompton, does any1 know how long do they have the patented for in the US and when will it expired? I think it is time for a clone like the merc to take them out of business.

nice attitude vinc. all that hard work to make a quality bike and you just want it cheaper at the cost of the innovator.

I know I have a merc, BUT this was made on a value judgement of getting a slightly lighter alloy frame, and with the amount of genuine Brompton parts on the bike (valued at more than the base model they offer) I can sleep easy knowing I didn't swindle them.

I always take a breath before reading one of your posts. They're always so... erm... random and abrupt.

Sorry as a consumer I have no sympathy for monopoly and slow innovation from one company. it is good for consumers to have more competition. With more competition, comes with more innovation and less prices.

Dahon, downtube, citizen all have the same fold. And yet those company don't sue one another. I'm tired of one company protected by their patent system and sit on their butt with little improvement year after year. But sorry that's just my opinions.

Just like viagra & cialis are completely different in every way, the so called Brompton, Strida etc clones are often completely different to their original namesakes.

I look forward to more pill reviews Chop! ;)

@ vincentnooyorkcity
If you'd come up with the world class fold I'm sure you'd have a slightly different view. Competition does encourage innovation, but so does independence and clarity of ideas.

Trying desperately not to type something offensive to flame you. You are just such a polar opposite to me.

Okay, personal soapbox, Monopolies are defined as having >70% of the largest market one can reasonably said to compete in (in this case the folding bicycle market). Being the sole supplier / user of a particular widget (because of patents) that competes with other similar function widgets (that also have patents) is NOT a monopoly.

It's like saying Schwalbe has a monopoly on Schwalbe Marathon Plus tires...

anyway, i found my answer...it seems brompton patent on its folding mechanism has expired long time ago. but reading on about how brompton mauled anita (the only merc retailer) with all their lawyers in the uk...i feel bad for her.

when flamingo bike start selling their "merc" in the us for half the price...i'm pretty sure brompton will be out of business.

patents protect innovators ........ usually, exceptions granted of course

...I know I have a merc, BUT this was made on a value judgement of getting a slightly lighter alloy frame...

u r such a hyprocrite. if u got a merc for a slightly lighter alloy frame...y didn't u get a titanium brompton frame? it is also "slightly" lighter too. oh wait...let me guess, it cost too much and thats y u got a merc?

There are lots of copies of Dahons and Stridas, but few of Bromptons, Bike fridays, swifts.
Strange.

Chop, there is a viagra type pill which is unbelievably called 'Uprima' :D (Strange how that stayed in the memory).

There are lots of copies of Dahons and Stridas, but few of Bromptons, Bike fridays, swifts.
Strange.

Chop, there is a viagra type pill which is unbelievably called 'Uprima' :D (Strange how that stayed in the memory).

I'm pretty sure I have no desire to know how that's supposed to be pronounced.

Those bikes, yeah, likely the design is intricate (I'm thinking another word fits better) that's it's hard to do copy right.

Ahem. Vincent. If you did your homework, you'd know that a Brompton Titanium model is not all Titanium. It's a steel main frame with Ti forks, rear triangle and seatpost.
Let me say that again. It's a steel bike with Ti components.

My Mercton has all three of those very special Ti parts, but an alloy, not steel frame. I like to think of the way I built the bike as a similar thing to a race car where some of the main body parts are not the actual body parts you'd buy in the showroom but a light carbon/GRP/fibreglass replica. Same with my bike. It's a B in spirit and soul but not weight.

If you really wanted a Ti main frame then you'd have to wait till *like never* for the vapourware bike (also a B copy, but somehow never mentioned in these clone arguments) - the UFB (ultimate folding bike). Sadly - no-one knows when this will ever come to market, and also - the likelihood is it's out of most people's price-range.
http://homepage.mac.com/lenrubin/PhotoAlbum1.html

Please don't throw around words like hypocrite before you're straight on your facts - it's only gonna blow up in your face and expose your true character. Which I don't think many people find that engaging or pleasant. Well I don't.

Fin.

If you have the resources to built a Brompton-inspired bike for personal use (not comercial) I don't think you can get in legal trouble with the original Brompton makers.

I suggest Vincent to start putting things together. I might be able to help, since I am interested in a compact fold bike that rides better than a Brompton, no matter how costly it is.

We don't have to wait for the ultimate bike to be ready. We can be the change we want to see.

Just my $0.02. Please understand that nobody has to agree with me. :)

If you have the resources to built a Brompton-inspired bike for personal use (not comercial) I don't think you can get in legal trouble with the original Brompton makers.

I suggest Vincent to start putting things together. I might be able to help, since I am interested in a compact fold bike that rides better than a Brompton, no matter how costly it is.

We don't have to wait for the ultimate bike to be ready. We can be the change we want to see.

Just my $0.02. Please understand that nobody has to agree with me. :)

thx 14r...i'm looking into the mezzo...it has arrived in the states and there are in bike shops in nyc....if it is compact (fit into luggage w/o any disassembly), ride better, and cheaper than a brompton...bye bye brompton.

ps - i just google ur address 14r...u won't believe...i stay in at a hotel (holiday inn express) just right across from u...i have been traveling alot for my job and now looking to bring a folding bike with me.

The Brompton patent (http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=Nz4zAAAAEBAJ&dq=bicycle+ritchie) in the USA expired a decade or more ago.

tcs

I am very interested in anything that is compact (fit into luggage w/o any disassembly) and rides like a brompton (or better).

My main issue is that I have actually 2 needs: One is a light bike, not focused on comfort, but speed and performace so I can do 20-30 miles and not strugle to keep up with conventional bikes.

The other need is a more comfortable bike that I can travel with and be able to do 100+ km. Super light is not really necessary here.

So...ideally, I would have a single bike that I can change saddle, gears etc....


OR


2 bikes (equivalent of Bromptons S1E-X and S6L+Plus


Any ideas?

(on my way to research about this Mezzo bike.)

Just like viagra & cialis are completely different in every way, the so called Brompton, Strida etc clones are often completely different to their original namesakes.

Thanks for the info. Hopefully I will never need Brompton, Viagra, Strida or Cialis.

Kam

when flamingo bike start selling their "merc" in the us for half the price...i'm pretty sure brompton will be out of business.

The Flamingo is not going to be a cheap bicycle! If it does arrive, the price will be slightly less than a Brompton but not much less! People like myself buy the Brompton because even though it's overpriced, there's much more involved. It's called Bling!


The OP is angry because he cannot afford the Brompton and prefers to see them gone with the wind. LOL! However, you would figure with the Patent expired, others would have jumped in and started making Brompton Clones but this has not been the case.

Dahon, Bike Friday and Birdy all feel their design is better than Brompton and there is no need to duplicate an original. Quite frankly, I would think less of Bike Friday if they did make an exact duplicate of the Brompton. It's all about pride.

...The OP is angry because he cannot afford the Brompton and prefers to see them gone with the wind. LOL! However, you would figure with the Patent expired, others would have jumped in and started making Brompton Clones but this has not been the case.

Dahon, Bike Friday and Birdy all feel their design is better than Brompton and there is no need to duplicate an original. Quite frankly, I would think less of Bike Friday if they did make an exact duplicate of the Brompton. It's all about pride.

oh trust me i can afford a brompton...i just dont want waste my hard earn money going toward a greedy monopolize corporation. i just hate big business i.e microsoft, ea crushing little guy. other have tried to jump into brompton design (i.e. merc). look what happen when brompton tried to threaten anita...she stop selling it.
if brompton didn't feel threaten by the merc, y did they go after anita with a bunch of lawyers?

ah....since ur nickname is dahon, i guess u haven't heard dahon is coming with a copy design of the brompton folding called the curl? i guess dahon doesn't have any pride huh?

There is this old patent http://www.pat2pdf.org/patents/pat4182522.pdf but it was filed more than 30 years ago.

Kam

Sometime I have the feeling that we wouldn't hear a lot of this anti-Brompton sentiment if the bikes were an american icon, designed & built in a shed in say, Boston MA, rather than being a british icon, designed & built in a shed in Brentford Middx.

Why are there no Bike Friday clones, why are there no Swift clones ?

Just my 0.2cents

I really don’t understand why you hate Brompton so much!

There are plenty of people who are very willing to pay the asking price for a quality, hand built, British bike like the Brompton and take pride in owning such bikes. I have bought 2 this year, a custom titanium S-Type & a custom steel M-type (total £ 1,850).

If you want a cheap bike they are on sale in Asda (Walmart) from £50.:rolleyes:

I guess you also hate Pashley and Moulton, as the last remaining truly British bicycle makers they are obviously charging far too much for their products, especially when they could have the bikes manufactured in Taiwan or China for a faction of the cost.;)

Vincent - if you were to look at photos of the Brompton factory - a rare thing in the UK these days - I think you'd understand how terrible your David and Goliath argument is.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3144/2902533826_eea2bbae64.jpg

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/33/52744809_5129ffaaa0.jpg

Brompton is a pretty small domestic engineering company that expands incrementally when it can, who trains it's own local staff.
It sells purely on reputation and spends almost nothing on advertising.
Flamingobike is in fact the 'Goliath' here - the company builds many bikes for many other manufacturers in the east, and can charge less due to reverse engineering (no need to 'develop' low land rents, cheaper labour and automation.

So to sum up, using your criteria. Brompton is 'The Little Guy' and Flamingobike is 'Big Business' And you are wrong, sir.

I really can't believe how loud you are prepared to be about a subject you clearly know pretty much nothing about. Sheesh.

vincentnyc, I'm with littlepixel on this one; firstly Brompton is a small engineering firm who design test and build their products in the UK not some large corporation like Trek or Dahon. They could make far more money by manufacturing abroad and badging their bikes like so many other companies do.

What you are paying for, in part, is a hand built in the UK by a skilled workforce bicycle. Most of the work force live near the factory (not the most affluent area) and can be seen buzzing about on brightly coloured "work" bikes. Even through the recession they have been recruiting production jobs rather than shedding work for factories abroad. Isn't this what we should be looking for?

To put it another way vincentnyc, Imagine you came up with your idea for a better folding bike. You spend years and thousands developing and refining it and finally start making it in a little local workshop. Then a factory in China (or other low wage country) took all your hard work and produced copies at a third the price?

It's a free market, they have the choice how to make and price their wares, you have the choice of buying their bikes or not.

oh trust me i can afford a brompton...i just dont want waste my hard earn money going toward a greedy monopolize corporation.

I will say it yet again, Brompton is NOT a monopoly! Monopolies are defined as having > 70% market share in the largest market they can reasonably be judged to compete in. In this case, Brompton competes in the folding bike market rather than the bike market at large. They're nowhere near 70% market share.

If you read the history of Brompton’s creator Andrew Ritchie:
http://www.brompton.co.uk/page.asp?p=3086
You will realise what a big sacrifice in time, effort, resources and reduced standard of living he went through to bring us these special little bikes. Any financial rewards / better quality of life he may now be enjoying are wholly dissevered... he has paid his dues:thumb:

Imagine you came up with your idea for a better folding bike. You spend years and thousands developing and refining it and finally start making it in a little local workshop. Then a factory in China (or other low wage country) took all your hard work and produced copies at a third the price?

Speaking about your scenario not as a bicycle enthusiast but as a design engineer and holder of a couple patents: If the patent for the "better idea" is still in effect (currently 19 years from the time of filing) one could seek redress in the courts. Once the patent expires, one should prepare to get their derriere handed to them in the marketplace unless they continued innovating. That's the rules of the game, everybody knows them going in and nobody cares how the innovator feels about it.

tcs

Any financial rewards / better quality of life he may now be enjoying are wholly dissevered... he has paid his dues:thumb:

Of course, Ritchie would be enjoying even greater finacial rewards and the resultant quality of life if he dumped his high cost London factory and moved the manufacturing operation to Taiwan. That he has quixoticly sacrificed some of his gain for certain others is either noble or foolish depending on one's perspective.

tcs

If patents would not expire than the Brompton would not exists since it based on expired patents of earlier bicycle inventors.

The main Brompton patents expired several years ago. Brompton protected its market through copyrights. There are PUH-lenty of discussions in the archives.

From the Wikipedia page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brompton_Bicycle)which corresponds with my memory.

Copyright infringment

Following the expiry of the Brompton patent, Neobike started to import its Scoop One and Astra Flex V3 models into Europe.[22] A court case was held at the Groningen civil court in the Netherlands on 24 May 2006, which ruled that the industrial design of the Brompton folding bicycle was protected by copyright. Additionally, the Neobike manual included direct copies of drawings found in the Brompton user manual.[23]

The Brompton Bicycle Limited v Rijwielbedrijf Vincent Van Ellen BV ruling held that there was creative flexibility in the design for a bicycle beyond those choices made purely for functional reasons; in the Brompton case this included the M-style handlebars, curved main frame tube and the cable-placement.[23] Each of these were noted to be distinctive design decisions that another manufacturer could change without compromising the ability to create a functional folding bicycle. Such a level of perceived similarity was therefore likely to cause "confusion in the market" under the Dutch copyright law, Article 13. Neobike did not choose to appeal and Brompton Bicycle was granted the right to have all of the imported bicycles destroyed and an injunction against future imports by Neobike.[23]

Of course, Ritchie would be enjoying even greater finacial rewards and the resultant quality of life if he dumped his high cost London factory and moved the manufacturing operation to Taiwan. That he has quixoticly sacrificed some of his gain for certain others is either noble or foolish depending on one's perspective.

tcs

Certainly production costs would go down. But simply judging from what other people write regarding what makes a Brompton attractive, other government incentives, and the cost of getting bigger, it isn't clear to me that his decision to produce in GB is that much of a sacrifice. Although it is probably the case that by certain metrics society is worse off by keeping production there.

Patents on mechanical devices aren't like patents on drugs or software because there are still complicated and expensive manufacturing processes you have to set up to create the item. Consequently, the cost savings you would get from manufacturing a public domain design, while real, are not nearly the savings you get from drug or software manufacturing, where almost the entire cost of the product lies in the patent. (WRT drugs, assuming that you are already a drug manufacturer).

You know what? I seriously doubt brompton would go out of business at all. Just like americans want something american made so does the brits would want something british made. If that wasn't the case wouldn't you guys think that Louis Vuitton and Gucci would have gone out of business by now with all the counterfeits and knockoffs that are out there? Nope, people are still coveting them and the real collectors ONLY want the ones that are made in europe and not the knockoffs from a factory in china. You'll have the many that will want the knockoff but there will be just as many that wants the original product. It's a personal thing and some like the feeling of ownership they get for the original product. I paid alot more for my silly bike just cause I really like the product and wanted the original one and didn't really care that others want a cheaper version. To each its own.

Maybe couldn't you guys think just maybe that Andrew Ritchey wasn't there to make maximum profits for minimum cost? But instead he really wanted to make a bike that the people would be proud to own that has a long british craftsmanship history, made by their own countrymen?

It's a different feeling between buying like a handmade bicycle made from europe or north america instead of a $100 walmart bike mass produced cheaply by machine.

I don't own a brompton by the way so I'm not pushing everyone to get one, I just ride my silly strida. Just using handbags as the analogy cause of listening to my wife talk about it once in awhile and she kinda speaks the truth about that pride of ownership mentality.

Patents on mechanical devices aren't like patents on drugs or software because there are still complicated and expensive manufacturing processes you have to set up to create the item. Consequently, the cost savings you would get from manufacturing a public domain design, while real, are not nearly the savings you get from drug or software manufacturing, where almost the entire cost of the product lies in the patent. (WRT drugs, assuming that you are already a drug manufacturer).

In this case, Neobike, already had the machinery to produce Brompton clones.

It isn't clear to me whether there is a connection between Neobike and Merc/Flamingo, but there are clones out there.

Copyright infringment
Neobike did not choose to appeal and Brompton Bicycle was granted the right to have all of the imported bicycles destroyed and an injunction against future imports by Neobike.[23]

Interesting.

If Brits protect their manufacturing jobs which is why Brompton is still around. If Brompton were an American company, they would have just been another Schwinn story.

Interesting.

If Brits protect their manufacturing jobs which is why Brompton is still around. If Brompton were an American company, they would have just been another Schwinn story.

Since you posted this I've read up on Schwinn (wikipedia), but they aren't Brompton I find. scwhinn itself just became outdated and outmoded by the 80-90's and no one even wanted to copy them cause they where building better bikes themselves (cannondale, trek, specialized where "better"). For the Brompton here people WANTED to copy them cause they have a good thing going.

I think it's hilarious how the OP disappeared from this thread and formed a new thread bashing Brompton in a new way.

Interesting.

If Brits protect their manufacturing jobs which is why Brompton is still around. If Brompton were an American company, they would have just been another Schwinn story.

It has nothing to do with Brits protecting British manufacturing jobs. Raleigh, for example. Once the biggest British cycle company, used to make more than half the bikes sold in Britain, all made in Britain - now it's little more than a name, the bikes are made in the far east.