Posted on July 19, 2022 by Staff

In a complaint filed in the Central District of California courts on July 13, 2022, Fox Factory, Inc., is seeking damages from SRAM, LLC, for patent infringement relating to SRAM’s use of bleed ports on their latest Rockshox suspension forks.

In the filing, Fox refers to its Patent # 9,739,331 for a “Method and Apparatus for an Adjustable Damper” that contains a manually activated pressure equalization valve. We’ve seen these on their forks for years, and they’ve proven popular for keeping the forks working their best as temperature and elevation changes throughout the ride.

A pressure relief valve on one of the new 2023 Rockshox forks.

The recent Rockshox launch of its 2023 Pike, Lyrik and ZEB forks introduced a similar feature on those forks, and Fox is claiming they did so with willful disregard of their patent. Available on Ultimate and Select+ versions of all three forks, the feature appears to operate exactly the same as on Fox’s forks.

Fox is seeking actual and punitive damages, and has asked the courts to demand that SRAM cease sales of infringing products and deliver unsold inventory for destruction. Or perhaps SRAM could just pay damages and plug the holes…which would be easy enough since the valves are removable.

In reality, the end result could simply be that SRAM has to license the technology, much like Race Face (owned by Fox) now has to license narrow-wide chainring teeth from SRAM in a drawn-out legal ordeal that no doubt left a sour taste in Fox’s mouth.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

My Mrp ribbon has had these years before Fox. Sew em all!

I don’t think a seamstress knows anything about hydraulic forks.

They’ve been on the Fox 40 longer than MRP has been making the Ribbon

Litigation is financed by higher prices, adding about 40% to production costs. Fire the litigators and let quality decide who wins.

They pay fox a license fee to do so

Basically just don’t support fox after this and the slik debate.

sram patented stanchion markings. So l don’t feel sorry for any of them

That wouldn’t be a patent, that would be a trademark, and it takes very little change in artwork to do something equivalent but not the same and that is legal. Other than the fact that trademarks are cheap versus a patent, I can’t understand why they would have bothered getting one

Sag markers on the stanchion is definitely a patent, not a trademark

please sram ripped me off with unfit for purpose avid brakes and the 400$ xx cassetes that broke teeth two days out, no sram deserves little credit although they have turned it around

Supposedly they have their quality control issues resolved, however I have two friends that got new bikes both with the latest RSC sram brakes and H2 rotors and they’re making a lot of noise and they can’t fix it

My rear H2 wont stop making noise, my fronts are fine. RSC with GuideRE Calipers.

My Codes RSC with HS2 rotors are also super noisy. Not impressed after spending so much $$ on this setup. Wish I’d stuck with Shimano…

Slik used fox logos and artwork without permission. If you choose to not enforce your trademark you loose them.

Why should fox give away thier trademark and patents?

It was used by other manufacturers before fox. Why should their patient be valid.

Then why are there patent rights? If anything you shouldn’t support sram.

Every MX fork manufacturer should be suing Fox, no?

Patents are application specific so something patented in the automotive industry could be fair game in the cycling industry. It’s all dependent on the actual filing.

Try “vehicular use”…that pretty much covers the bases and IS enforceable in many jurisdictions.

The best possible solution would be to destroy all unsold forks…. Because cycling is a green industry and we all care for the planet. Best idea ever

And give the carbon,plastic and aluminium residues to the alpacas in order to have sintetic wool!!

Hey Fox, here’s an idea: take the potential financial settlement to re- engineer those POS Fox 36 CSUs that need replacing EVERY TIME I take my fork in for service. #garbage

I don’t see ford kicking up a stink because other manufacturers cars roll on tires. What is the difference?

2016 people. It’s not fox’s technology. https://www.bikeradar.com/news/mrp-launches-ribbon-suspension-fork/

Good. SRAM wants to own the whole cycling industry, buying up whatever brands they can to enter each segment of the cycling market. We need less conglomerates like SRAM. In 10-15 years people will be wondering where it all went wrong.

© Copyright 2022 Bikerumor, All Rights Reserved