Franky Zapata, you asked about the lawsuit that Jetlev/Jet-Lev Intellectual Property, aka JLIP has filed against us in Florida District Court for alleged importation of X-Jetpacks into the US. The information is public knowledge in this case and is available for anyone searching for it. JLIP/Jetlev has sued, Flyboard in 2012, Jetovator in 2014 and now Stratospheric Industries, Inc., makers of the X-Jetpack and the Jetblade. We contacted Ray Li in 2009 and let him know we thought his Jetlev was pretty cool, but out of our price range and that we planned to build a hydro jetpack of a new design. We contacted Ray again in 2012 after we tested our first production model the H2X, he liked the advancements and solutions. In 2013, we entered into discussions with Jetlev about supplying them hydro jetpacks. This was at the same time that you were talking to them about the same thing. After your discussions broke down, Jetlev tested our X-Jetpack, found it to be superior to what they produced and entered into negotiations, attempting to contractually assume all of our IP and development work. They were more interested in leveraging us and obtaining our development work and getting directly into our supply chain. We tried to find various compromises, but at each turn we were met with unacceptable proposals and demands. We refused and entered the world market on our own. Jetlev shortly after announced the Aquaflyers and the Aquaboards with a delivery date of November 13, 2013. After no discussions or contact for a year, in August 2014, Jetlev decided to sue us, potentially to get all of the information that they could not get previously. As part of the court actions, demanding everything from supplier lists, exact bills of materials, engineering drawings, market forecasts, test results, the list goes on. A dream list to get from a competitor that has produced a superior product. The court date was set for August 2015. We had doubts on the validity of the patents, for example, when we heard about claims of “center of gravity” when they sued you. However, Jetlevs action of suing us forced us to look closely at the strength of their patents. We examined the independent claims, the ones that matter. Our researchers looked into the history of the field and uncovered a vast treasure trove of prior art, that cancel out the claims in the patent(s). We have a lot of respect for the work of Ray Li as we have respect for your innovation, but the lawsuit forced us to question this work and find the weaknesses in it. It is the only option that was available. They are weak/invalid patents in light of the prior art. We have finalized now our petition for re-examination of the patent in question. We will directly present this to the USPTO, (this is out of Jetlev’s control) and the USPTO will take the stack of historical documents and re-open the patent and start to compare the claims against the prior art with a new examiner. This process can take a while. The majority of patents, 80% or so, that undergo re-exam, have their claims reduced. Some patents are cancelled entirely. We would expect that the Jetlev patent, under re-examination, will be cancelled in its entirety. The claims are not “novel”. The judge in the case has just vacated/cancelled the trial date, there is no fixed dated for this to continue, it will be sometime going forward. This could go on for years, as such, we are re-evaluating our approach to the US market. In the future, if there is still a patent, and after the court case has concluded, the court determines that we violate some aspect of it, the court will determine a reasonable royalty on the part of the system. That royalty will be multiplied by the number of units that we may have sold, at some future time, in the US. One thing is sure, the royalty that might be paid will not be worth the trouble or cost of the lawsuit, we are getting sued because the owner is a wealthy businessman, with little interest in hydro sport. We have been on both sides of the patent game in the past. It is the reason that we choose to openly develop and advance our products without patenting, it is a waste of time. Let the marketplace decide on which product they will buy, and make it better every year. Choice and variety are good.
Posted on: Sun, 04 Jan 2015 16:31:32 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015