BikeBiz Bicycle and cycling retail news
Shortly before the WFSGI held its online counterfeits meeting at Taipei Cycle Show, Tern and UK-based Avocet Sports revealed a deal to use of Tern’s patented frame design in Avocet’s Ferrari 20” folding bike.
The fresh agreement covers all Ferrari bikes imported into the UK by Avocet to date as well as future imports of bikes that include Tern intellectual property.
The deal follows a case of IP infringement: The infringing frames were manufactured in China by Komda Holdings and the complete bikes were supplied through a Taiwan trading company. Neither of the companies were licensed to make use of the patented Tern design.
“We were pretty surprised to see these bikes utilising our patented design,” said Term team captain Joshua Hon. We thank Steve Walsh for acting quickly to fix a friendly agreement for use of our design.”
Tern’s legal department has issued Komda with a cease and desist letter and is investigating similar bikes sold to other Komda customers. The frame design in question is patented in China, Taiwan, and the EU. Tern has more than 70 patents for various technologies and designs globally.
Hon added: “We have a large team of skilled and dedicated people working on our product designs and technology and it is important for us to protect that intellectual property. I’m sure that every company creating their own IP knows exactly how we feel. For our industry to grow and thrive, we need to innovate and the only way we can do that is if our innovation isn’t quickly ‘borrowed’ by other companies.”
