In the brave new world of the globalization of everything, where things are designed in the United States for African consumers, then produced in China, issues of copyright become very personal.
Core77 forum user, slippyfish, calls out a Spanish company called Orbea who seems to have been stealing the designs from US bike firm Kestrel, possibly through the factory which produces frames for both companies. This basically amounts to identity theft among designers. Perhaps not to the level which this woman was victimized and vindicated though.
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Official comment from Orbea and Kestrel:
An Open Letter to the Bicycle Community
June 21, 2007
In recent weeks, parties external to both of our companies have inaccurately claimed that Orbea copied several aspects of Kestrel bicycle frame designs. Through this letter, we would like our customer, dealers, suppliers, and the global bicycle industry to know that neither of our firms believes this to be the case.
Kestrel Bicycles has North American based design resources while Orbea S. Coop’s design teams are located in the north of Spain. We do not share design support firms and neither of us has ever hired a previous employee. While our two firms do share some manufacturing resources, both of our design efforts remain rigorously separate.
At Interbike 2006, we both noticed a similarity of the seat binder on the Orbea ORCA and the Kestrel RT700. On October the 2nd, after comparing design timelines and locations, we jointly determined that while the designs were similar, our overlap was coincidental. We feel that anyone looking objectively at the two designs would conclude that there are more differences than similarities.
Both of our firms appreciate and share the passion for artful, high-performance bicycle design. We both work very hard to create unique and groundbreaking bicycles reflective of our companies’ individual design DNA and history; copying from others is simply contrary to this basic principle. Rest assured that you will see many incredible designs from both of our firms in the years to come as we continue to push the boundaries of bicycle design and advance the evolution of the bicycle.
Sincerely,
Miguel Ocana
MD, Orbea S. Coop Ltda.
Kevin Kenney
CEO, Kestrel USA
Go here to view the original document:
http://www.orbea-usa.com/download/Kestral_orbea_letter.pdf
Please address inquiries to info@orbea-usa.com
June 26th, 2007 at 4:48 pm