ElectricMotorcycleForum.com
General Category => Electric Motorcycle News => Topic started by: enaef on November 30, 2019, 03:27:57 AM
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Things develop ...
Might be interesting to know how much time it takes BMW to turn this in a Bike on the market ...
https://electrek.co/2019/11/25/bmw-electric-motorcycle-patent-electric-sport-bike/
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Doesn't seem to be anything novel about this.
Lots of bike designs with engine-as-stressed-main-part-of-frame, and frankly it's so obvious it shouldn't be patentable; the type of drivetrain shouldn't mae a difference.
(but then the vast majority of patents I see have clear prior art and/or are obvious to anyone in the field).
As to whether BMW is getting ready to launch a production BEV bike, maybe, although if so (anytime within the next 1-1.5 years, say), I'd think they'd have announced it -- they do have a decent amount of brand loyalty and customers who would have waited for the BMW EV bike rather than buy a Zero or Energica.
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On the other hand, any longtime BMW customer knows better than to buy the first year of a new model. And I assume that this will be true for any electric motorcycle that BMW manufactures. ;)
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On the other hand, any longtime BMW customer knows better than to buy the first year of a new model. And I assume that this will be true for any electric motorcycle that BMW manufactures. ;)
That is true with any newly designed model and was always true with any brand.
Has anybody here ever purchased newly designed bike, unlike all their other previous models, that had no bugs?
My 2013 Triumph Trophy was a new model, and it had several bugs. But Triumph did a great job of fixing those bugs. My 1984 Venture was a year after. It took three years to find some of those bugs which is way after the warranty expired and now mine slips in 2nd gear. They fixed that problem in 1985 but now I am stuck with it as my symptoms came years after. Still a nice nice useful bike, I just do not use the 2nd gear. Now fixing that problem will cost many times what the bike is worth.
-Don- in Sunny and clear Payson, AZ
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...it's so obvious it shouldn't be patentable; the type of drivetrain shouldn't mae a difference.
The US patent office has changed their MO in recent years. They used to verify that an idea was new and unique before granting the patents, but that requires a huge amount of research and expense on the taxpayer's dime. Far more patents are filed these days than when the patent office was established, and far more of them are technological in nature than ever before.
Nowadays they're just granting patents after the filer does a quick search for prior art, and if someone claims they did it first, they have to fight it out in the courts to invalidate/defend the patent. It's not ideal, but at least it is cheaper for the taxpayer. The court costs are paid by the parties trying to make money on the idea.
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...it's so obvious it shouldn't be patentable; the type of drivetrain shouldn't mae a difference.
The US patent office has changed their MO in recent years. They used to verify that an idea was new and unique before granting the patents, but that requires a huge amount of research and expense on the taxpayer's dime. Far more patents are filed these days than when the patent office was established, and far more of them are technological in nature than ever before.
Nowadays they're just granting patents after the filer does a quick search for prior art, and if someone claims they did it first, they have to fight it out in the courts to invalidate/defend the patent. It's not ideal, but at least it is cheaper for the taxpayer. The court costs are paid by the parties trying to make money on the idea.
Offtopic, but this is a topic I'm very familiar with -- used to be in charge of patents at various tech companies.
It's far from recent, and it's not only in the US; the entire patent system is completely broken, and many examiners are incompetent and completely unfamiliar with the fields they're supposed to be able to research. The vast majority of patent applications I see are completely trivial.
Challenging a granted patent is very, very difficult, and takes years if not decades. In the meantime, affected parties need to make working assumptions with very significant business implications which are hard if not impossible to change afterwards.
If the patent office can't do its basic function, there's really no protection for inventors without deep pockets.
It's so broken that if I could, I'd dismantle the entire IP system at this point -- it actively hinders innovation.
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This thread is about BMW taking out a patent, so a patent discussion seems pretty on-topic to me.
I don't know the system nearly as well as you obviously do, having been involved only a few times for patent submissions in my own name. But I'd agree it's really pretty broken at this point. There are people taking out patents not on their own DNA (which seems like nature's invention to me), but on other people's DNA. People patenting "ideas" that they have no idea how to make work in the real world. Outright patent trolls submitting "submarine" patent applications in the hope that someone will invent something they can claim they thought of first and bleed dry.
I've worked at two companies now that went under because someone was able to convince a judge that our truly different product "read on" their patent. The first time was when someone from Bell Labs made the claim that they should have a retroactive patent on the laser because their work was classified at the time and they couldn't patent their idea then. A judge agreed with him, and he methodically went around taking money from laser-based companies, starting with the small ones like the one I worked at. They were hoping to parlay those precedents into eventually get royalties on every CD and DVD player ever made.
I suppose I agree with the concept that someone who invents something new deserves a make a profit off of it for a few years before others are allowed to jump on the bandwagon. But the system as is is totally unworkable.
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As I'm not a technical guy I cannot judge if this patent is related to the prototype shown in the link (further down).
It definitively looks a lot more like a normal bike compared to the BMW Vision DC Roadster concept.
Interesting (although possibly only on the prototoype): "BMW has chosen to put the back brake where you’d normally find the clutch, on the left bar like a scooter".
For me as a bicycle rider at the moment and e-motorcycle user in a few months, that is what I had wished for. However, I completely understand why the usual motorcycle-rider wouldn't be happy about this ...
https://www.bennetts.co.uk/bikesocial/news-and-views/features/bikes/bmw-electric-prototype-eroadster-fast-charge
[Edit] ... and another link ...
https://www.motorcyclenews.com/news/new-tech/bmw-electric-motorbike-concept/