Interesting side note on the "early/mainstream" days of American aluminum frames: Gary Klein developed his large diameter aluminum frames and received a patent on the design. Some other companies (notably Schwinn) actually paid Mr. Klein license fees to build large diameter aluminum frames. Other companies, notably Cannondale, did not buy a Klein license.
Mr. Klein took Cannondale to court for patent infringement. The cycling community was interested in whether the dimensions of frame tubing was something that could be patented, but in the end the question was decided on entirely different grounds. Bringing in large diameter aluminum frames built by
Bill Shook and
Harriet Fell (wife of the late Sheldon Brown) which predated Mr. Klein's, Cannondale successfully argued that the Klein patent was null and void due to "prior art" - you can't patent something that's already in existence and known publicly.
tcs
Originally Posted by
calderarider08
Would it however, be safe to say that cannondale was the first bike company to perfect and readily make available aluminum bikes to the American cyclists and then expand europe with other bike companies following in their footsteps? This is alot of fun to learn about!
Cannondale didnt perfect anything and I'm going to politely disagree with tcs's comments. Cannondale straight up ripped off Kleins patents. IIRC correctly Cannondale lost the patent infringement lawsuit inregards to chainsaty/dropout design and refused to pay Klein royalties, thats why Cannondale switched over to the 'cantilever' dropouts. The failure rate of the cantileveer dropouts was exceedingly high, C-dale abandoned the design, decided they'd be better off paying Klein royalites and switched back to the original design.
....But I could be wrong.