I have always thought most (if not all) of the Campy "patent" marks were wishful thinking, at best. There are never any patent numbers. The items that claim "patents" were not invented by Campagnolo; in general, there is nothing patentable about them. They don't represent Campagnolo inventions that are unique and non-obvious.
There is such a thing as a "design" patent, but they are not particularly useful. You still have to show that you have invented some unique and non-obvious design, and that someone else has copied the unique element. Since all bike parts of a type are more or less the same, it is pretty hard to claim invention of a non-obvious design. Now, the Suntour slant-parallelogram was a genuine invention, and it was protected for 20 years.
If the "patent" notices meant anything, then Campy invented the headset locknut, the dropout, the chainring, side-pull brakes, etc. I don't think so. If Campy had sued someone, the likely result would have been that Campy would have been ordered to remove the word "patent" from its products.
Louis Schulman Tampa, FL
Kurt Sperry wrote:
> 2009/8/25 George Hollenberg <ghollmd@gmail.com>:
>
>
>> The other more important issue is, did Campagnolo tolerate imitations of its
>> parts? Zeus and perhaps other firms were doing the same thing. Could
>> Campagnolo have conceivably consented, turned a blind eye, or even or play a
>> role in producing a cheap "outlet" type product to appeal to the lower end
>> of the bike market?
>> I'm told that today Campagnolo is very vigorous in protecting its name and
>> designs.
>>
>
> I've wondered the same because it seems like every patented Campagnolo
> design was being knocked off seemingly at will by component makers all
> around the world almost immediately after they were introduced. Maybe
> Campagnolo would sell a license to anyone who inquired or maybe they
> just patented stuff so they could engrave Pat., Patent, Brev, Camp.,
> Campagnolo etc. on every square millimeter of visible surface as
> decoration.
>
> Kurt Sperry
> Bellingham, Washington
> USA