DENVER (BRAIN) — A U.S. District Court denied Fox Factory a preliminary injunction that would have forced SRAM to immediately take some RockShox forks off the market. Fox sued SRAM last July, claiming that the air bleed valves on some RockShox forks infringe on its patents.
U.S. District Judge Raymond P. Moore denied Fox’s request for a preliminary injunction on Wednesday. Moore said Fox failed to convince him that the company risked irreparable harm if the products stay on the market during the dispute.
Wesley Allinger, the executive vice president of Fox's cycling division, testified that Fox and SRAM compete for OE spec with bike brands and said that once a bike brand chooses a component brand, it is more likely to continue with that component for some time. Allinger referred to this as the "stickiness" of spec' wins.
However Moore said much of Allinger's testimony was anecdotal or speculative. And Moore noted that SRAM asserted that Fox had already regained spec' it had lost with some bike brands with a fork that lacked the air-bleed valves under dispute.
"The other evidence presented demonstrates that the air bleed valves are a desirable feature on a bicycle suspension but fails to demonstrate that they drive either sales or pricing, or if they do, to what extent," Moore said in his order denying the motion.
Fox filed its complaint in California but the case moved to Colorado in February. The court has yet to set a trial date but has tentatively scheduled discovery and expert witness testimony deadlines into July 2024.
