Well Tige will not get sued by Malibu now.

[Booms]

LOUDON, TN -- (Marketwired) -- 11/11/16 -- Malibu Boats (NASDAQ: MBUU), the world's largest manufacturer of watersports towboats, announced today that it has licensed its industry-leading wakesurfing patent portfolio to Tige Boats. Tige will use its license to continue equipping its product line with its existing wake surf offerings, but will not be offering Surf Gate or the Surf Gate brand.

"We are pleased that Tige has recognized the strength of our intellectual property and agreed to sign a license and forego potential litigation," said Malibu Boats CEO Jack Springer. Springer commented further by saying, "Respecting intellectual property rights helps encourage strong innovation in our segment and helps grow watersports for all of our loyal customers."

"I want to commend Tige for acting honorably and quickly, once we contacted them, to acknowledge the breadth and value of Malibu's extensive intellectual property for wake surfing. This allows both of our companies to focus on delivering boats and innovations to our customers."

The license with Tige represents the third marine company to agree to license Malibu's surf related intellectual property. Correct Craft and Chaparral Boats were the two previous marine companies who have taken a license for Malibu's wakesurfing IP portfolio.

[Stingreye]

Hmmm I am thinking the Go Surf Assist might be in trouble....

[UNSTUCK]

So taps 3 is a copy of their surf gates? Similar but still way different. Their pantant must be pretty broad.

[chpthril]

im just an average dude off the street, but i think if you peel back enough layers, the suite is about the concept, not the hardware. So even if the mechanical means of making the wave is different, the theory and hydrodynamics are a copy.

[KoolAid]

"Delayed Convergence". This is the term that makes their patent bulletproof in my opinion. Has nothing to do with the hardware design. Its about delaying the convergence of the wake by mechanical means.

[DCR20]

.....oh dear my suck gate creates 'delayed convergence' I wonder if Malibu will sue me if I sell it to a friend....

[BCRider]

KoolAid is on the money. Malibu if I remember correctly patented the delayed convergence by device theory regardless of how it's done. ie, Malibu surfgate, NSS, or any other Taps style design. Just like how everyone had/has to pay CC for the idea of a tower.

[IDBoating]

Utter hogwash. Trim tabs, and patents covering them, have been on boats for decades. Patents for trim tabs have been around so long many of them have already expired.

Malibu's patents cover side-mounted trim tabs with vertical hinges. Trim tabs with horizontal hinges, or hinges parallel to the bottom of the hull, and which extend downward below the hull and not out to the side, are "known in the art" with decades of prior art and cannot be patented in their basic form. That's why Malibu's patents don't recite nor claim those. (GSA has at least one pending patent, which I suspect addresses their double-layer tab design, but it's not visible yet in the patent system so I don't know for sure. I can guarantee you they're not patenting hinged trim tabs, though.)

I am incensed by Malibu's behavior here. I know why Tige signed this agreement (though I can't share the reason) and I suspect I know why Nautique signed the original one. The problem is, these agreements are establishing precedent, which can be used to bully other companies who quite literally don't infringe. Keep in mind, Malibu sued Mastercraft on this same topic and their Gen2 system is regular trim tabs, not vertically oriented ones that stick out the side to impart yaw to the hull and thus create "delayed convergence" {barf}. There is absolutely no way MC infringes on Malibu's patents (which I've read in their entirety), but this game plan of signing up licensees strengthens Malibu's appearance when the MC case finally gets to court.

Malibu deserved their SG patents. Imparting yaw to the hull to create a surf wave is a brilliant insight and deserves IP protection. But that should not enable them to reach back and rewrite decades of watercraft history regarding trim tabs.

[sandm]

there's way more to this than any of us will ever know and I am sure tige has a crack legal team on retainer that guided this decision. credit to tige for nutting up, paying any licensing agreements, keeping lawyers from getting rich while increasing the costs of boats, and ultimately continuing to create a world class wave....

[talltigeguy]

Utter hogwash. Trim tabs, and patents covering them, have been on boats for decades. Patents for trim tabs have been around so long many of them have already expired.

Malibu's patents cover side-mounted trim tabs with vertical hinges. Trim tabs with horizontal hinges, or hinges parallel to the bottom of the hull, and which extend downward below the hull and not out to the side, are "known in the art" with decades of prior art and cannot be patented in their basic form. That's why Malibu's patents don't recite nor claim those. (GSA has at least one pending patent, which I suspect addresses their double-layer tab design, but it's not visible yet in the patent system so I don't know for sure. I can guarantee you they're not patenting hinged trim tabs, though.)

I am incensed by Malibu's behavior here. I know why Tige signed this agreement (though I can't share the reason) and I suspect I know why Nautique signed the original one. The problem is, these agreements are establishing precedent, which can be used to bully other companies who quite literally don't infringe. Keep in mind, Malibu sued Mastercraft on this same topic and their Gen2 system is regular trim tabs, not vertically oriented ones that stick out the side to impart yaw to the hull and thus create "delayed convergence" {barf}. There is absolutely no way MC infringes on Malibu's patents (which I've read in their entirety), but this game plan of signing up licensees strengthens Malibu's appearance when the MC case finally gets to court.

Malibu deserved their SG patents. Imparting yaw to the hull to create a surf wave is a brilliant insight and deserves IP protection. But that should not enable them to reach back and rewrite decades of watercraft history regarding trim tabs.

I am not sure I agree. MC first came out with a dual trim tab to try and make a better surf wave and what happened? It didn't really work. It created list, but not delayed convergence. MC then tweaked that and called it 'Gen 2' which changed the shape of tabs in the same location, and it worked better because it now creates the delayed convergence. The patent is clear about any mechanical device that creates delayed convergence. Trim tabs that have been around for generations do not create delayed convergence and are thus not part of Malibu's target.

Tige created Taps3 which has tabs that are shaped to create delayed convergence, and now you have them paying up to Malibu. On some level, Tige agrees with that assessment.

[JLG]

Looks like malibu found a way to get their money back from a lawsuit they lost to MP: Karma got malibu!!

From an article I read online:

A recent suit between Marine Power, LLC and Malibu Boats, LLC for a breach of contract has been concluded in Marine Power’s favor, according to documents obtained by Boating Industry.
Marine Power, a company that designs, manufacturers and sells high-performance sport boat engines, alleges the company entered into a business relationship with Malibu Boats. Through it, Malibu agreed to buy engines through purchase order 557 PO, which called for Marine Power to manufacture 571 engines for a total purchase price of $5,954,102.00. By the end of March 2014, Malibu informed Marine Power that it did not wish to pursue a long-term agreement with the company and would not be using Marine Power as a supplier of any engines for model year 2015.

Marine Power alleged it entirely or substantially performed its obligations under the 557 PO and Malibu breached its obligations, damaging Marine Power.
A jury in the United State District Court of the Eastern District of Louisiana found that a contract existed between the two companies and that it was a contract to build. The jury determined Malibu Boats owes Marine Power $1.8 million as a result of Malibu’s termination of the contract. Because the jury determined the contract was terminated in bad faith, Malibu Boats owes Marine Power an additional $1.3 million in damages for lost profits, for a total of $3.1 million.

“We are pleased that the federal court jury in New Orleans rendered a verdict in Marine Power’s favor finding that Malibu’s unilateral termination of a Purchase Order with Marine Power for 571 custom engines designed for Malibu’s Wakesetter boats was without just cause and in bad faith, and awarding Marine Power its full damages in the amount of $3.1 million,” a spokesperson from Marine Power told Boating Industry. “Marine Power has always been committed to working with its customers as partners and to building and delivering the highest quality engines, and the jury’s verdict in this case vindicates these core values of our company. While it is likely that Malibu will appeal, we are confident that the jury’s verdict will be upheld.”

“We were disappointed with the outcome of the case and while we disagree with the jury’s findings we respect the process,” a spokesperson for Malibu Boats told Boating Industry. “We are now considering all of our legal options including appeal. Based on our understanding of the facts we believe that we have several alternatives available to us and expect that in due time we along with our legal team will proceed with our next steps.”

The case was filed in April 2014. Though it was originally terminated in May 2014, it was reopened in June 2015.

[h2o-ski]

I have read through some of the early patents from Malibu. Malibu's first patent only called out specifically tabs that are perpendicular to the longitudinal (or water), while there second patent is essentially the first one just expanded also calls for tabs parallel with the water.

To me it looks like what has been going on in tech industry for years. There is prior art, ie trim tabs however the patents for those never called out wake surfing so some one made a patent and once granted decided to make deals or sue others that have something similar. Some one could fight the patents and possibly have them declared invalid, but due to cost of lawyers and time, it is usually cheap to pay the licensing cost. In my opinion this is what happened here, Tige decided to pay instead of fight.

I just happened to find Tige's original patent for TAPS, TAPS While it has lapsed, there could be a case for prior art as it does talk about convergence of the wave, granted in the wrong direction related to surfing.

[chpthril]

Some one could fight the patents and possibly have them declared invalid

Correct Craft did, and lost

[IDBoating]

No, CC was sued by Malibu, each spent several hundred thousand dollars on lawyers, and eventually they settled out of court with CC taking the first license Malibu ever issued for their SG portfolio. There was no court decision, no one won nor lost, and thus the question of validity has not been settled. It may be by MC's defense but I haven't checked on its status for a while.

[Lamest]

I'm not a fan of overly broad patents. I've surfed behind Tiges' and Axis(es?) boats. I prefer the wave behind the Tige, and respect that the characteristics are uniquly different than that of the Axis wave - Drift vs List is a common question on any surf forum. This reminds me of the music companies wanting to dig so far back as to sue the creators of NFS and SMB file systems for allowing music to be copied from file shares. Boat companies will adapt; towers started leaning forward to thwart the patent that CC originally placed. Not sure how many fishing boats paid for the license on the stern leaning tower patent for the right to hang some fishing poles. I have yet to see a Duckworth with a forward leaning tower.