03.08.2009

Alufase wins battle with Instant

Instant/Upright the alloy tower manufacturer has lost its legal battle with Spanish manufacturer Alufase, which it claims copied its scaffold system and cold form production method.
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The Alufae tower

Alufase is owned by Termiser, an Instant distributor for more than 25 year, which was also sued by UpRight. The company launched its own version of the Instant scaffold under the Alufase brand in 2005, following some disagreements with Instant/UpRight.

UpRight launched its legal battle against both Alufase and Termiser on the 15th February 2007 UpRight requesting that almost €300,000 in damages, plus legal costs, for the company to stop producing the towers and component and for all tooling, promotional material to be destroyed.

On July 30th the Mercantile Court of Madrid issued a judgment to the lawsuits dismissing all claims except for one demanding that some photography be removed from the Alufase website.

UpRight International was also ordered to pay all court costs.
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The Alufase internal crimped joint

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The Alufase components- almost identical to those of Instant

Vertikal Comment

The loss of this case is an interesting one, as it has implications that go well beyond the battle between Instant and Alufase, which probably should never have occurred in the first place.

UpRight/Instant (this business no longer has any connection with UpRight powered access) originated the modular aluminium scaffold tower in 1946, when founder Wally Johnson of Berkley California, came up with the idea OF using alloys that had been developed for aircraft during the war, for a lightweight easy to assemble modular scaffold system with captive parts.

He went on to register numerous patents for his towers and their components and spread the concept across North America and into Europe by 1955. He made another breakthrough in the early 1960’s devising a way to make the towers without welding, using the ‘Rib Grip’ process of internal and external crimping to join alloy tubes.

The effect was to eliminate the weaknesses caused when thin wall alloy tube is welded. The resulting product was both faster and cleaner to produce and infinitely more durable, allowing the company to introduce a lifetime guarantee on its joints.

Most of the company’s patents expired in the 1980’s but it has rigorously defended its designs from attempts to copy by competitors in Germany, Korea and China. It seems though that it has now failed in its latest attempt against Alufase, probably the best copy by far.

European rules generally protect manufacturers from blatant attempts to make exact copies of their original designs, even if the design has not been registered. This judgement though could open up the whole area, which could also include spare parts and components.

In this case Alufase never attempted to ‘pass-off’ the product as an Instant scaffold, its logo and name are totally different and it always made it clear that it was not Instant tower, BUT it has exploited the fact that it is totally compatible with Instant.

Which is another subject – one for another day…