Malibu wins patent suit against GSA

[duffymahoney]

Hopefully Malibu will sell rights to their patent, which they deserve.

[IDBoating]

Here's something to whet your appetite, straight out of Malibu's patents. Look at these figures and ask yourself if a jury would have any problem seeing the difference between this and traditionally mounted trim tabs like GSA, etc. Particularly when you first establish that traditionally mounted trim tabs have been around since at least the early 1900's.

Now, go read the patent specs and how Malibu describes their "upright water diverters". Their own words and photos condemn them. And a judge/jury will have no trouble recognizing that.

MalibuSurfGateStern.jpg

MalibuSurfGateDetail.jpg

[IDBoating]

Hopefully Malibu will sell rights to their patent, which they deserve.

That's what "royalties" and/or "license fees" represent. I have no problem with them charging royalties for asymmetric vertically mounted plates - that is what they actually invented. The problem is they are exploiting an error in their claim language to apply it to ALL trim tabs. As their own drawings (above) confess, they did NOT invent traditionally mounted trim tabs. Period, end of story.

[UNSTUCK]

So the next question I guess is, does GSA and similar companies deserve a patent for their design? Is it different enough? I can’t find GSAs patent to look at it.

[miller]

So the next question I guess is, does GSA and similar companies deserve a patent for their design? Is it different enough? I can’t find GSAs patent to look at it.

Here is GSA's patent:

https://patentimages.storage.googlea.../US9545977.pdf

[IDBoating]

I haven't studied GSA's patent but a quick glance suggests they have an innovative closed channel for redirecting water. Compare their images to Malibu's and I think 12 jurors would easily agree that GSA's is an improvement on well-known, public-domain, 100+ year old traditionally mounted trim tabs and not Malibu's vertically hinged, side-mounted, side-deploying plates that "divert water" at the surface.

Do both systems manipulate the wake behind the hull? You bet, just like trim tabs and plates and other devices have for 100+ years. Do they each incorporate some new technology? Obviously. Do those two new technologies overlap? Is GSA a copy of Malibu's? Not even close.

Consider this: The Patent Office certainly knows about Malibu's patents. I haven't researched the prosecution history of GSA's patents but I see that Lars Olson is the Examiner. I have worked with Examiner Olson countless times and can guarantee you he is intimately familiar with Malibu's SurfGate patents since they have come up in quite a few prosecutions with which I've been associated. He knows all about the Malibu SurfGate patents, yet he deemed GSA's design to be patentably distinct enough to justify its own patent. I'm glossing over some details but it makes the point... Even the Patent Office thinks GSA is different from Malibu's SurfGate, and has said so in writing in the form of an issued patent.

Thus the point is reinforced that just because someone rolls over and succumbs to paying royalties does NOT mean they actually infringe.

Now, take that a step further and think about a new trim tab that is specifically designed to avoid Malibu's SurfGate by working in an entirely different manner. No delayed convergence, no vertical mounting, no side mounting, everything carefully designed to be easily proven totally different. So obviously different that a blind man could see it with his cane. What happens when Malibu falls for the trap and gets suckered into suing over something like that? Remember what I said earlier about pride going before a fall? Sometimes people do not know when to stop, and you can use that against them to control their behavior.

[UNSTUCK]

What are you hinting at?!?!