California inspectors concerned about Windseeker braking system and evacuation procedures

This story lends some credence to the theory in the previous thread that it was something about the brake being "stuck" that prevented them from manually cranking people down at Knott's. I can't imagine any other condition that would lead the park to leaving people up there that long.

I was just going to post about that Jeff. Why would it take them that long to manually lower the ride. And it sounds like they only lowered them to about 30 ft above the ground in some if not most instances... then it seemed they had to wait longer yet. Am I right on that?

Shoulda, woulda, coulda gone with StarFlyers :-)

Don't I remember a (seemingly-frivolous) lawsuit over CF going with the Windseeker model...?

I am NOT a fan of the "everyone gets the same new ride" idea....unless they're coming from Oprah Winfrey!

Fun Time threatened to sue Cedar Point. But, it never happened (as far as I know). They seemingly used that opportunity to spoil Cedar Fairs announcement of the Mondial Windseekers.

It was discussed before. But, the reason they said they were gong to sue was over patent infringement. But, then, why wouldn't they just sue Mondial? That's what made the whole thing suspicious. If they said they were going to sue over breach of contract, it would have made more sense.

My understanding is that it's a matter of which patents are in play where. Let's say Funtime holds a US patent, but not an EU one. Let's further assume, hypothetically, that the Mondial product actually practices the patented invention. In that case, Funtime can't sue Mondial directly for infringement---Mondial is free to manufacture the ride, and even sell it elsewhere, without infringing a US patent.

But as soon as a US company buys one, they *can* sue that company for importing infringing technology.

If they hold both US and EU patents, they can use a US importer, and separately sue an EU manufacturer.