Bicycle Built For You?
Race to an industry ripe for invention.
According to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, there were
more than 4,200 bike-related patents issued between 1996 and
2000—do the math, and you're talking more than 800
patents per year and more than two bike patents per day. According
to Bicycling magazine senior editor Garrett Lai, bikes have always
been a product category with plenty of patent action. "Bikes
are accessible, people can see all the parts and how they work, and
they can create a new bike innovation in their garage," he
says.
It's true—inventors come up with new bike inventions
all the time. During our interview, Lai reeled off a quick list
that included Paul Turner, creator of RockShox, the first
commercially viable front suspension system, and Rolf Dietrich,
inventor of Rolf Wheels, which are now featured on Trek bikes. Both
inventors started on their own, like so many others before them,
before eventually selling off their businesses to big
companies.
But there's another reason so many bike inventors are
successful: The market tends to favor inventor introductions.
It's a product category where consumers and bike shop owners
can easily see that your product is different—and maybe even
better—than competitors'. Not to mention, in the bike
market, you have a network of distributors ready and willing to
sell your product. Few, if any, product categories make it this
easy on inventors.
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