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Cage fight: CarbonWorks' Bottlecage (left) and Topeak's Feza R10 Cage fight: CarbonWorks founder claims Topeak bike bottle cage infringes brand's own design
Maybe imitation isn’t the best form of flattery? Simon Bühler, the man behind the boutique carbon cycling accessories brand CarbonWorks, has accused Topeak, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of cycling accessories, of replicating a design he registered eight years ago for its latest Feza Cage Tubular Carbon R10.
After road.cc reviewed the minimalist and very, very light Feza R10 this week, with the product receiving a 9/10 score, Bühler reached out to road.cc (and commented under the review itself) to claim that the Taiwanese manufacturer had copied the design he came up with.
Bühler said: “I invented this cage design in 2015. In the year 2022 Topeak began making and selling copies of the cage, identical to the original.”
Bühler told road.cc that he came up with the design of ‘Bottlecage’ while he was serving in the German Armed Forces in 2015 after being inspired by nature. He said: “It was a cold and snowy winter in Bavaria and we had to walk many kilometres through the forest near Hammelburg/Würzburg.
“In this situation it came to my mind to make a light and new bottle cage, which has the same bionic design as the trees and plants in the forest. A round and hollow structure can be found in many grasses and plants. Making an integral connection to the tubes and so on... the idea was born.”
After a few months, Bühler completed the first prototype, based on which he got a design patent for in Germany. From then, he worked on making the product better, and even presented it at the annual Eurobike show.
Finally as Bühler finished his service and was about to start focusing on his small company based around this bottle cage, he heard rumours that Topeak was using his design and planning to present it at Eurobike in Frankfurt.
In what could be described as a David vs Goliath scenario, Bühler hired a lawyer to take on Topeak: "At first, they offered to pay for a licence, but then the next day they threatened to file for cancellation of my patent."
Bühler's patent document, dated 11 May 2015
Bühler said that after many costly months, Topeak told him that it was going to make a new and completely different design called V15; however, in Bühler's opinion, the promised revamp to the V15 has simply taken the form of his brainchild again.
“I had new hope, but now it seems that they are circulating their old design again,” added Bühler.
“I hope you can understand how important this is to me and three of my staff. We are definitely too small to take on a big player like Topeak. A lot of money and time that I would have spent on new inventions has been put into this battle, but hope is fading.”
Bühler also said that not only is Topeak using his design, but that it also copied the surface layer on the carbon to protect it from scratches. Topeak also appears to use similar imagery and advice from Bottlecage’s manual on its own R10 manual, claims Bühler.
CarbonWorks' and Topeak's manuals for their bottle cages
Bottlecage is the flagship product of CarbonWorks, which also produces bike mounts for mobile devices. The company says on its website that the cage is a “masterpiece of lightweight construction”, weighing in at just 8 grams, and is “perfect for everyday use and still incredibly light”, and is available to buy from £79.
On the other hand, Topeak’s Feza Cage Tubular Carbon R10 comes in at 12 grams and is priced competitively at £59.99. Our review noted that “it holds bottles very well and there's very little movement even over rougher surfaces”.
However, readers, along with Bühler himself, were quick to comment about the uncanny similarities between the two. MatzeLoCal wrote: “Oh wow, it seems Topeak took a a very close look at carbonworks bottle cage… not a very kind move from Topeak”.
Dadams7378 commented: “It's a blatant copy. I know that CarbonWorks are concerned this will possibly put them out of business, as though expensive, its still a lot less than the CW cage. Cheap Ali Express copies that don't really work are one thing, but this will be at least as 'good', plus cheaper. Not very ethical as you say.”
Topeak has been contacted for comment.
Adwitiya joined road.cc in 2023 as a news writer after graduating with a masters in journalism from Cardiff University. His dissertation focused on active travel, which soon threw him into the deep end of covering everything related to the two-wheeled tool, and now cycling is as big a part of his life as guitars and football. He has previously covered local and national politics for Voice Wales, and also likes to writes about science, tech and the environment, if he can find the time. Living right next to the Taff trail in the Welsh capital, you can find him trying to tackle the brutal climbs in the valleys.
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40 comments
It is great having small companies that want to produce anything in Europe in a Chinese products infested market. And while this may not excite many people, if I was willing to pay double digit money for a bottle cage and my two options were an £80 cage made in Europe by a cool company named Carbon something and the other option was 50% heavier at £60 made by the grandsons of Chinese guys who went for a long sailing trip, I would definitely go for the cool carbon company because if you are willing to pay more than 10 euros for a bent wire, you probably have other cool stuff.
But these cages have the price (or even double the price) of whole bicycles I have bought or sold (balance bikes, steel bikes) so their price at both examples seem just crazy to me. Production must come to Europe again but not for only niche, bought to brag items but for sensibly priced items, that in the start will inevitably be more expensive than their Asian counterparts, but not too much more. I believe this is a good opportunity since the grandsons of hiking loving chinese have realized that they make things for half of the world way too cheap and here in Europe with many trendy lazy jobs that will be threatened by AI, new opportunities will be required.
Pretty stunning disaster of a comment. Gratuitous bigotry, irrelevant to the point of the article, nothing of substance worth saying or replying to. Really hope the poster was drunk and that his thoughts aren't this disordered during the sober hours of the day.
^^ hahah - great comment
Thanks, I love posting when drunk (because at late hours everybody has to drink, right?), but please correct me if you believe I am wrong.
Yea. How about this which springs to mind: https://road.cc/content/news/215460-pinarello-hits-back-velocite-recesse...
Pinarello/LVMH stealing from a small Taiwanese brand. Should I launch into a diatribe about the origins of Italian people, culture of trade, colonialism, theft of land and property. Is that relevant too?
You are good to spot such an example, but 99% works the other way around. If you see a black sheep, it doesn't mean that all sheeps are black.
Just look here an easily spotted part of the 99% https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=carbon+saddle&_sacat=0&_s... where you can find designs from famous brands, all perfectly legal and ready for sale.
A mathematician, a physicist, and an engineer are riding a train through Scotland.
The engineer looks out the window, sees a black sheep, and exclaims, "Look - the sheep in Scotland are black!"
The physicist looks out the window and corrects the engineer, "Strictly speaking, all we know is that there's at least one black sheep in Scotland."
The mathematician sighs and corrects the physicist, "There is at least one sheep in Scotland, one side of which is black."
The conductor bumps into them, sees what they're looking at and declares "you idiots, it's night-time - everything is black".
It's hard to know for sure due to the lack of important details in the article, but it seems that Topeak has perhaps behaved dishonorably but almost certainly not unlawfully.
Patent rights (contra the article's headline, this case has nothing to do with copyright) only apply in the jurisdiction in which they are granted, and it looks like Carbonworks only has a patent in Germany. Accordingly, Topeak is only legally prevented from selling copies of Carbonworks' cage in Germany, which it appears they are not doing (that is, they're not selling their cage in Germany at all).
We could have a debate about the ethics of Topeak's behavior, or about the policy wisdom of retaining traditional patent boundaries in the internet age, but as things currently stand I don't see that Topeak is infringing Carbonworks' legal rights here.
Finally, as far as I can tell it looks like Carbonworks doesn't have a utility patent (which covers technological innovations, such as manufacturing process and functional surface coatings) but only a design patent (also known as an industrial design right or a registered design, and which only covers the visible design of the product) over its cage. On the bright side, design patents are far easier and cheaper to attain across multiple jurisdictions than are utility patents, and I would recommend checking out the World Intellectual Property Organization's expedited system for doing so (https://www.wipo.int/hague/en/). It's too late to get additional protection for the cage under dispute, as the novelty requirement can no longer be satisfied, but it's good to know for the future. I do wonder why Carbonworks' legal counsel didn't recommend this originally? (I searched the WIPO database and can't find any evidence that Carbonworks' cage is in there.)
Indeed, it seems that effective legal counsel has been lacking overall, as Carbonworks seems to be asserting rights their design patent wouldn't give them in any event, in jurisdictions where they don't have any patent rights all.
Correct it is a "patent for design" or "protected design" still in force and protected in Germany. Beside the moral Topeak showed in our conflict, it is a problem as they tried to publish this design on the Eurobike in Frankfurt last year. This was prevented by my lawyer. And they still sell to many onlineshops, which mostly ship to Germany and not only Taiwan, were indeed I don't have protection. It would be nothing for Topeak to change the design. They already told my lawyer, they will. But seems they just keep going with the old.
It is a registered design, not a patent. The term "design patent" is specific to the US. It can be difficult to enforce IP if you don't understand what you own.
There is absolutely nothing to prevent anyone in Germany making or selling a tubular carbon bottle cage with high grip coating, per se. The only question is the extent to which it looks like your design.
Also, the term "design" in this context refers to the appearance of a product only. As tempting as it is to imbue the term with a more colloquial meaning associated with the technical endeavour of brining a product to market, this is not what it means.
As far a sales are concerned these copies from Topeak and other, cheaper ones on eBay etc. are a non issue, really.
I can surely understand that it doesn't feel nice when others take your design and run with it, but with the enormous price difference CarbonWorks won't lose a single sale on them. People who buy 25 dollar eBay knock off's, or even the 60 dollar Topeak one, would simply otherwise never have bought the original as it is too expensive* for them, and people buying the original have the money to spend and want the real deal.
It's a sucky thing to do from Topeak, but it won't hurt CarbonWorks at all.
*The CarbonWorks cage is £100, not '£79' as the article mentions.
This article is a tour de force of wrong.
Copyright, registered design and patent protection are all different things.
Copyright protects copying, not independent creation. Which means to enforce it you need to show copying. Given that these cages are essentially the same as common tubular metal cages, what's been copied?
Design protection protects the appearance of an article. Registered designs tend to be narrow in scope because the legal test is whether a different overall impression is given to the informed user. The courts have tended to boil this down to, "can you tell the difference?" Just look at the Trunki saga.
That bottle cage design certificate uses a photo to show the design by the looks of it. Of the actual product. Tells me they didn’t get professional advice because that makes the design even narrower than it could have been. So if the alleged infringement has a different type of carbon, or the design shows hand made manufacturing defects, I could see even that being enough to give a different overall impression.
Besides, the design field in question is very crowded. I have a titanium cage like these, with a slightly different curvature at the tips. The Topeak one looks less rounded to me. given the plethora of other similar designs, that may well be enough. And the end stop is a different shape. The screw holes seem not to be recessed in the Topeak product also. Etc.
The surface finish is not protected, unless it is in the image.
Patents protect inventions. Neither of these are inventions. The only reason the word patent appears in the article is because one or both of the author or CarbonWorks owner don't know what they are talking about.
Finally, IP is territorial. This is a German registered design certificate. Topeak are Taiwanese. They can do whatever the hell they want other than in Germany, even if it is the same.
Oh, and registered designs aren't examined for validity before they are granted. Owners need to worry about that later if they enforce them, sell them or license them... they are also restricted so as to exclude certain things needed solely for function, or which are shaped in such a way as to fit around or against another product. For a bottle cage which is fixed against a bike, by bolts, and to hold a bottle cage, what is left? Is there any element of the design that is actually protectable that is the same between the two products?
My guess is Topeak will have taken the view that it was easier to pay a nominal fee for German sales than to have an argument, but will have come to the same conclusions as me. CarbonWorks on the other hand have probably lost out, but can now raise the company profile - albeit at the risk of being sued for making all sorts of unsubstantiated allegations.
What about the Alpitude Superleggera?
https://r2-bike.com/ALPITUDE-Flaschenhalter-Superleggero-Carbon-UD-matt
That is not available in Germany due to patent reasons.
We have an agreement with Alpitude. They have been very professional. Changed their design asap. But moreover it was not a copy, the don't use hollow tubes. Alpitude produces completely different and their way of production was invented not copied. Although the design is similar - yes. But it is fine.
I am not giving professional advice, but I would note that neither design nor copyright provide any protection for a method of manufacture.
However, I believe a patent does in Yankland.
Amazon one click ! If it stuck.
A patent can protect a method of manufacture anywhere in the world. But carbonworks don't have a patent.
Why is the Alpitude one not available in Germany from this German online Shop?
Patents don't work for small companies. A cycling mate of mine invented the metal cage gun thing that you use with caulk tubes. To maintain the parents cost all the profits and when the design for nicked, the cost of defending it was so big he gave up.
A friend of my ex-father-in-law invented the mole grip. He spent a fortune chasing companies that copied his product without success. Another fortune frittered away.
Are you sure? Vise grips were patented in the USA in the '20s. When Mole started manufacturing them in the UK 30 years later they were a blatant copy...
Logistically perfectly possible, if Ian's 60 and his ex f-i-l was 40 years older than him and the ex f-i-l-s friend was 30 years older than ex f-i-l that would make the friend born in (removes socks for counting purposes...) 1893.
The first caulking gun was patented 1894 though so I'm guessing his friend invented an improved version rather than the concept itself.
Not sure, but I was regaled with that anecdote over many a Sunday lunch. I do remember mole grips being on Tomorrow's World.
However, I think I will depend on this lengthy article to defend my confusion - it probably also explains why xFiL's mate was unwise to depend on patents to defend his product.
http://progress-is-fine.blogspot.com/2017/01/vise-grips-versus-mole-grip...
I had to read the whole of that article. Thoroughly gripping
My father invented the question mark.
Riiiiiiight
This is nonsense. Pre revenue technology based SMEs rely almost entirely on having protectabke IP, or they do not get investment and cease to exist. It is true they are expensive to enforce, but that is only a factor in a small proportion of cases. Patents do more work to deter and provoke technical work arounds.
I guess the point is that patents need to be taken out in every jurisdiction that you are looking to protect. In the days of yore, a small trader would be content working in their local country, but these days international awareness is so high that any bright idea in one country becomes available in any other country.
The legal costs of securing a patent are not trivial, and the legal costs of enforcement are prohibitive (which appears to be the underlying complaint of the article). I think the extra problem now is that there is so much prior art that proving something is patentable is non-trivial - large corporations seem to file patents without necessarily expecting them to stick as a spoiling tactic with competitors.
I think you are making my point - in your scenario, the patent only works as part of some investment scenario, where you are selling on the idea to larger investors with deep pockets. If you want to be independent, developing your own business with your own resources, you have a long period of exposure as you expand your business.
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