As the fitness industry prepares for the Smith-Leahy America Invests Act (AIA) to go into effect in 2013, changing the U.S. patent system from a first-to-invent to a first-to-file system, just how big of a problem is patent infringement in the industry?

Lawyers who specialize in fitness law say that exercise equipment is one of the most litigious fields for patent infringements. However, commercial equipment manufacturers disagree.

“I don’t see a lot of patent lawsuits in our industry,” says Kevin Corbalis, executive vice president of marketing and product development at Star Trac, Irvine, CA.

Ray Giannelli, senior vice president of research and development at Cybex International, Medway, MA, says, “We investigate others’ IP (intellectual property) before we embark on a new product. If the idea is already out there, we probably don’t want it because we want to do what hasn’t been done before. It enhances our creativity to think outside of the box and not to copy what others have done.”

Dean Sbragia, CEO of Med-Fit Systems, Fallbrook, CA-based manufacturer of Nautilus equipment, agrees, adding: “Ours is a sales-driven company, and we like to get our customers’ input on product design. We leave it up to engineers to figure out how to do that without infringing on others’ patents. Marginally, [patent protection] stifles a certain part of the creative process because there’s a lot of existing patented technology out there that we need to dance around. On the other hand, it also focuses our creativity by necessity, as we don’t want to infringe or get into legal hassle.”

Like Cybex and Med-Fit, Star Trac engages in a patent-clearing process before embarking on new product development.

Corbalis says: “To protect products in development, we have patent attorneys do searches to see if there are any patents for what we’re developing. If there are, we like to see if we can license them. If not, we’ll change our approach.”

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