Good read.
www.surfertoday.com/kiteboarding/the-history-of-kiteboarding-began-25-years-ago-with-the-legaignoux-brothers
Cya and
Goodwinds
Steve
How come once you post a reply the dialogue box comes back up making you think it wasnt posted and you end up typing it again and looking like a tool?
This is also a interesting read from the site kite-stuff.org
I did not post below on the other site by the way...http://kite-stuff.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=615&highlight=camel
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Who is the real inventor of concave trailing edge ILE kites, so called BOW's?
This is the question that I have in mind for quite long time. It cames out again after I was checking Bruno pages about his latest work... and last patents...
So, lets start.
1A. This is his design picture (flat 2D) took from "BOW" patent dated in 2004...
1B. And this is the pic took from the "article" The Camel goes kitesurfing dated in 2001
Looks quite alike, right?
Well, next...
2A. This is his design picture (3D) took from "BOW" patent dated in 2004...
2B. And the pic from 2001 (3D)
Again, looking alike?
Did you also noticed straight struts on the design?
I probably wouldn't bother with this, but the new "ultra flat" BOWs have one more similarity with the idea/design from 2001, very flat arc. And that is the reason for this post...
The next thing that bother me is one bridle patent (pending?) dated in 2007 - sliding bridle which connects a front line to a back line. From the quick translation of my French friend it basically says hat if one rear line is connected to front line, you must pay royalties...
Well - here is one bridle which connects a front line to a back line dated 2005 - it's from Windwing S.A.F.E. system.
I do not like to discredit Bruno for all of his stuff that he gave to this great sport...
I still have the question in my head - who the real inventors are and how he can patent the stuff that were somebody else ideas???
M2C
Please only constructive posts...
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And a reply form the camel
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Hi All,
I'm Andy Wardley, the designer of the Oxygen kite and author of "The Camel Goes Kitesurfing" (TCGKS).
I can do better than prove that I published the web pages in 2001... The pages are a web version of a paper I presented at the 2001 Open Source conference. The complete paper was published in the proceedings of the conference. It's out of print now, but I've got a couple of printed copies sitting here in front of me. There *should* be a copy in the Library of Congress (if I understand how things work in the US), although their online catalogue doesn't show it.
O'Reilly Perl Conference Proceedings
July 2001, O'Reilly and Associates
ISBN: 0-596-00228-9
I just tried to scan it, but it looks like my scanner has died I'll take some pics later. But I think it's safe to say that I can establish prior art without any doubt.
Copies of the Bow Kite patents are here:
www.inflatablekite.com/siteinf/gb/InfPatent.html#gotoApril
The patents cover three separate things:
1) The swept wing, concave trailing edge, general shape and construction. In this respect, my design is clearly prior art. Strike 1.
2) The bridle system. I don't mention the bridle in TCGKS so I can't easily establish prior art, but the bridles I used in my prototypes were very similar to what they've published in figures 4 through 10 (I've also got my bridle drawings from the time in front of me). They're all just variations on the catenary curve (think: inverted suspension bridge) theme. I don't make any particular claim there because kite designers (like Peter Lynn and Andrew Beattie for example) have been making similar variations on arch bridles for as long as I can remember (certainly back to the 1990s). In my opinion, there is no inventive step here. What they've done is obvious to any skilled person. Strike 2. For a background on the research I've done into active bridles (mostly on sticky kites), see wardley.org/kites/bridle/index.html
3) The control bar. Out of my league. I've never done anything vaguely invented with control bars so I'm not really in a position to comment.
Back when I submitted the paper, I did so in full knowledge that its publication would prevent me from subsequently patenting the idea (you can't patent an idea once it's published, even if you're the publisher). But that was fine as far as I was concerned. I didn't have the time or inclination to follow the idea through back then (or even now), so I was happy to share my ideas in the hope that someone else might make something of it. But the most important thing was that it would clearly establish prior art to prevent anyone else from patenting the idea and stopping me, or anyone else, from working on it. And here we are.
So I guess I get to say "I told me so".
In summary:
kite patent: bogus - clear prior art
bridle patent: probably bogus - no inventive step
control bar patent: no idea
All IMHO, IANAL, etc.
Cheers
Andy
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Ha Steve
It was interesting reading that article.
In September 1994 I was at Le Toquet France as a guest judges for the kiting world championships. In between events I was hanging around the beach with Peter Lynn. Dominique and Bruno Lfgaignoux were there with a three metre two line pump up they were dragging themselves around lying down on one of those rubber things that you towed behind a boat, sort of like one big torpedo in the middle and two small torpedoes attached one on each side obviously they were unable to go upwind, Bruno approached Peter wanting to know if he was interested in buying into there concept. We had a fly of the kite and decided that it was not even worthwhile looking at, how wrong can you be!! The reasons for thinking this was the fact that we came from kiting backgrounds where kites had to be much more responsive so we didn’t really think this product was much good. As you are aware Peter was working on large Ramair kites 10 metre peel and I was working on extremely large deltas which finally developed into the D-Wing some years later, when was that ?. Which of course you are very aware of seeing how the first time you go up on a board was here in Coffs Harbour using one of my D-Wing, come to think of it that was the first day I got up on a board as well.
Seeing how I am coming clean about how naïve and stupid we were a few years earlier I think it was about 1991 I was at Crescent Head testing some delta kites three of them which I had stacked one on top of the other my son had just come out of the water after a surfing session so I grabbed his board laid down on it and went screaming down the main beach at Crescent Head towards Richardson’s crossing. because I had earlier been in nz testing some kite boats I immediately rang Peter to tell him what I’d done on the surfboard and said it would be amazing if we could stick some Velcro on some boots and on the deck of the board and use it instead of a boat he burst out laughing and saying it was ridiculous that to get upwind you definitely need multiple hulls like I said earlier.
How wrong can you be!!
Bob Dawson kiterepairs
Love Andys work, especially his stunt kite work with Tim Benson, he is a design genius too.
However, I can immediately see some flaws in the arguments Chris, and I guess you must be wondering if you owe bruno royalties for your kites?
Is this an attempt at publicly discrediting Brunos patents?
Just a question, not an attack.
The Andy Cad rendering clearly has a straight trailing edge, and there was already a patent on the inflatable kite shape at the time he made that rendering AFAIK.
The windwing thing is a depower or safety depower system and is competely different to what bruno patented, which was an AOA changing bridle utilising pulleys or rings.
The bar things and other patents, don't know and not in question anyway.
Cya and
Goodwinds
Steve
Hey Guys, nice stuff.
Maybe one of you guys can explain why you need a curved trailing edge to make the kite flatter, or something. What I understand is that the more C shaped a kite is the less curved trailing edge it has and vice versa. Maybe I have the total wrong end of the stick.
Any ideas?
Cheers
Rich
