Client Cases – Rottefella
Case Study first published 28.01.2025
The Client
Rottefella have been working in close collaboration with Zacco and Claus Schmidt since 2009. They are a renowned developer and manufacturer within the growing sport of cross-country skiing, where they have built a solid global reputation for the quality of their ski bindings. These bindings are used in skis all over the world, requiring that they be compatible with the skis and boots developed by other manufacturers, many of whom promote their own bindings bundled with skis, boots and other co-branded accessories, such as poles or clothing. An integral part of their ongoing success was being able to offer a level of quality or functionality unmatched by competitors, encouraging consumers to actively choose Rottefella products over the ‘bundled’ bindings. Innovation and improvement, and an IP strategy that promoted both concepts, has therefore become existentially important in maintaining and developing their position at the forefront of the global binding market.
The Background
Claus Schmidt, a Partner at Zacco’s Norway office, has been working directly with Rottefella’s research and development team for over 15 years. In the beginning, Claus was tasked with helping to identify potentially patentable features that emerged from ongoing innovation, as well as exploring new solutions or improvements to their portfolio of existing rights. Around 2015, Rottefella saw a marked increase in their competitor’s willingness to challenge their strong market position, resulting in a noticeable drop in global sales, and requiring a rethink of their existing R&D and IP strategy. Rottefella developed a series of groundbreaking ski binding solutions, designed to safeguard their market position, and Claus helped to secure IP rights over the next few years for a new mounting plate system, movable bindings (“MOVE”) and new binding systems (“Xplore” and “SkateX”). Throughout this period, Claus worked closely with the R&D team on many of the projects, aligning their ideas with their IP strategy, and ensuring that decisions were made based on patentability and other possibilities for protection. He also encouraged pursuing IP partnerships and licensing agreements, which led to an extended IP partnership with Madshus, the two having cooperated on technology for binding systems previously when they developed the revolutionary NIS system in 2005.
The Court Case and Result
The result has been a continuous and fruitful cooperation between the two innovative organizations, with co-owned patent applications securing many new and exciting products. During 2020, Rottefella learned that global competitors, Salomon and Atomic of Amer Sports, were launching a new product line that Rottefella and Madshus believed was very similar to their own. Further investigation led them to consider the new equipment to be in breach of several co-owned IP rights, and they were forced to pursue a claim of infringement to protect their innovation, enlisting the help of Halvor Manshaus and Thomas Hagen, expert litigators from the law firm Schjødt.
The late nights, many meetings and strong team effort between Zacco, Rottefella, Madshus and Schjødt saw considerable success through the courts, backed up by Claus’ work over many years developing comprehensive patent applications alongside the R&D teams. Each decision was appealed by Amer Sports, eventually reaching the supreme court of Norway in Q4 2023, where the previous judgements were confirmed, alongside a previous order for Amer Sports to withdraw all infringing technology from sale. Rottefella won again for the fourth time when parts of the case were up in the Oslo District court again during August 2024, with the final result leading to a favourable settlement agreement for Rottefella. Amer will also now have to launch a permissible system for next season.
The Feedback
Torstein Myklebostad, the CEO of Rottefella, states that “We know that this result would not have been possible without such a great effort from the whole team, but particularly Claus Schmidt of Zacco, whose help has been invaluable throughout the last 15 years. It was Claus’ patent knowledge and expertise, and his close working relationship with our team in securing our ongoing innovation, that put us in a strong enough position to defend our rights against a global competitor. These 15 years have demonstrated the vital role that innovation and IP holds in maintaining a competitive advantage, and the importance of involving patent experts at an early stage who can contribute to a collaborative IP environment. Thank you to our fantastic colleagues, to Schjødt, and to Zacco, without whom we might have seen a very different result.”
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