Who B&M worked for according to William-Coaster_Fa

Moderators: I realize that you all closed a thread, and I usually would not attempt to re-open it, but in this case I feel I must. While most people believe that B&M worked for Intamin (as do I), there is some debate that B&M actually was on Giovanola's payroll, and then Giovanola in turn worked for Intamin. I think that this is a question that will never be resolved until someone directly questions Walt or Claude, but I though that it was necessary to put that opinion out there. You may now close this thread to avoid any useless chatter if you wish. Again, no dis-respect intended =].
lata,
jeremy

Intamin was at one time more of a broker, if I understand things correctly. In other words, they distributed and sold rides more than they designed and built them. If this was indeed the case, then both scenarios are correct.

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Jeff
Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com

Giovanola and B&M track look identical, or at least to me they do.

Question: Who holds the patents for the track design? And if so, why do the others (Giovanola, B&M, or Intamin) use the same design? I would think that one company would have to have some sort of financial arrangement with the patent holder in order to do this.



I appologise if this has been asked before. *** This post was edited by backseat on 11/22/2000. ***

Take a look at photos of Giovanola's inverted monster, Anaconda. Besides looking like the best inverted coaster on the planet, it looks *SO* B&M that I had to do several double takes!


http://www.coaster-network.com/bm/giovanola/anaconda.htm

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SOMETHING IS COMING!!!
In 2001 a new *beast* will rise at SFMM.

Giovanola and B&M are actually neighbours. Their premises are literally next to each other. Giovanola, as a traditional steel manufacturer did lots of spareparts for Intamin for twenty years. They worked as well for Schwarzkopf. Only a few years ago, they decided that their knowledge is big enough, to create their own rides (wether the departure of Mr. B and Mr. M from Intamin had something to do with it, remains unknown). This appears to be quite incestuous! And i think that the differences between the companies are much smaller than we all think.

Backseat: As far as I can tell, there is no US Patent owned by Intamin, Giovanola, or B&M for the 'box track' design. Though there might be a european (Swiss) one, I would not be suprised if they shared it. I did a little checking here at the job (I work at the US Patent Office) and there is at least one patent that Intamin and Giovanola share the rights too. It's patent # 4,700,632, for a stand-up coaster restraint. If you want to see it goto http://www.uspto.gov/patft/index.html ,click on "Patent Number Search", enter the number, and hit search. When the title comes up, click on the title, then select "images" and you will see a scanned copy of the document. I have some other intersting pat nos but will contribute them via the news section. *** This post was edited by 2Hostyl on 11/22/2000. ***

2Hostyl, thanks for looking into the US patents.

Notice that the patent you mentioned reads...

Inventors: Schmutz; Bernard P. (Vaud, CH)

Assignee: Giovanola Freres SA (Monthey, CH); Intamin AG (Freienbach, CH)

If ia am reading this right, this looks as if Giovanola and Intamin co-own the same patent for this restraint. Very interesting.

yeah that was the answer i was looking for