| Author | Message | ||
     Hootowl |
This looks familiar. http://www.foxnews.com/auto/2017/08/16/continental -reveals-aluminum-wheel-and-brake-concept-for-elec tric-cars.html | ||
| Aesquire |
I wonder if the reference Buell's patent in their own. If Buell had thought to put magnets in the rotor and use regenerative braking???? The best inventions build on the ones before. You have a machine with a keyboard? Reference the IBM electric you stole it from, and it's ok. They may want a small license fee when you go to mass produce your machine, but that's ok, and you are perfectly legal. You can't patent the wheel, as a round thing that rolls. There is ample "prior art" to prevent you. ( an idea that has been used before and everyone, at least in that industry, knows about. You may not know about aneroid pressure controls, but many do, so you can't patent one today. ) You can patent a specific variation on a wheel, or a brake. Disc brakes were around long before Erik wrote his patent application. He got it for his, proven, unique variant and the use listed in his patent. There had been rim mounted brakes before. Billions of bicycles have them. Erik's was a specific WAY to make one. It's less clear to me, without looking up the brake patent, if it covers just motorcycles, or all such brakes. I believe, but ask your lawyer first, that such cross application cases are often decided in the inventors favor. The Continental folk are almost certainly aware of the Buell brake patent. They have many well paid lawyers. They either think they have a loophole, or, as I said, added Erik's patent number to the prior art part of the application. | ||
| Ducbsa |
Harry Hunt sold aluminum rotors in the '70's, so that isn't new, either. | ||
| Natexlh1000 |
Buell's patent is ZTL. The approach of mounting the perimeter brakes such that the torque load is not carried from the hub to the tires. Not the perimeter brakes themselves. |
