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Sunday, 23 August 2009 08:36 |
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Beginning with an Innovative Seatpost In 1975,Charlie designed a very light, adjustable seat post with a machined magnesium head attached to thin, high-grade aluminum tubing. That year he manufactured twenty five seatposts with his father’s lathe and drill press. Charlie set up equipment to test seatpost fatigue and confirmed that his post, despite being a significantly lighter, outlasted competing designs. He built 25 more seatposts, and began selling them through word of mouth, plus shipped one to Bicycling Magazine, where it was photographed and reviewed. After a few years had passed, Charlie realized that he should patent his design. A family friend agreed to help him with the legal work, if Charlie would do the 'prior art' search. Charlie headed to the nearest patent office, 70 miles south in Sunnyvale, CA. He was stunned to find that his two most significant modifications had been patented the previous month by Campagnolo. A couple of the features of Charlie's post, which incidentally had not been visible in the Bicycling Magazine review, had not be patented, and Charlie duly patented those remaining designs. However, with the design now property of Campagnolo, Charlie ended his focus on seatposts and directed his attention to building his complete, revolutionary mountainbikes.
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