Question:
Dear Motorhead,
My question is directed to the Polaris’ use of Clean-fire injection on their snowmobiles.
Since they don’t own any rights to the technology, why were they able to put it on their engines? BRP uses it on their motors but they own the rights.
It reminds me of the conflict they had with BRP on the Motion control shock. They sued and were given rights to RER.
From the original open face clutch design to their fuel injected Indy’s Polaris has been copying ideas for decades. I don’t understand why BRP/Ski-doo hasn’t sued the hell out of them.
I don’t believe you will respond to this, but I just wanted to do some venting on this issue.
Thanks,
Marcel
Thanks for your email!
I’ll answer your question – in broad terms.
The ACM/Coupling/RER debate between Polaris and Ski-Doo involves much more than just these two OEM’s.
The original coupling patent was owned by Gerrard Karpik of FAST – he allowed Polaris to enforce it over all the OEM’s including SD. It is a very intriguing story.
Here’s another one – in fact Ski-Doo/Rotax do not own a patent or exclusivity on Semi-Direct Injection for 2 stroke engines. That’s why Polaris or anyone else can use it.
However, BRP does own patents on E-Tec Direct Injection (DI) technology on 2 strokes as does Mercury (Orbital) own their clean DI 2 stroke tech.
I’ve asked this question to Ski-Doo recently and they informed me Polaris is not breaching any perceived patents with them on Clean Fire.
You may also know the Clean Fire system is somewhat different in its injector placement. This is due to Polaris desire to keep the crankcases cool on its SDI mills.
Ski-Doo has elected to liquid cool the cases on some of their larger displacement (800R and 1000) SDI engines.
Motorhead Mark
