Message from Legaignoux brothers…

The Legaignoux brothers decisive contribution to the creation of the kitesurfing market cannot be denied: adjustment and registration of the inflatable kite patent in 1984, which still holds 95% of the kiteboarding market, creation of the pioneer trademark Wipika, invention of the 4-line bar, in short, the beginning of a new sport.

Licence, adjustment and registration…

The Legaignoux brothers decisive contribution to the creation of the kitesurfing market cannot be denied: adjustment and registration of the inflatable kite patent in 1984, which still holds 95% of the kiteboarding market, creation of the pioneer trademark Wipika, invention of the 4-line bar, in short, the beginning of a new sport. We all take advantage of their work, without it this sport would not exist today.
Recently their property rights including three patents and the inflatablekite.com domain name were transferred to a Portuguese company where Bruno Legaignoux and a team of attorneys are involved in.
Our goal today is to have our rights respected.
We started by an information campaign on these patents to allow all concerned in the market to face their responsibilities regarding the said patents. Since then, we started three actions in law against non-licensed companies and we’ll sue new ones if needful.

List of licensees…

The brands holding today a patent license and up to date with their royalties are: Naish, Cabrinha, Flexifoil, Takoon and Airush. They represent more than 50% of the market shares.
The brands Slingshot, F-One, North, Ocean Rodeo, are actually negotiating.
We invite you to visit our web site www.inflatablekite.com, you will find the updated list of licensees. We think that readers will appreciate to know what kites they purchase.
We are also developing on-going marketing operations regarding the patents by completing and improving the website www.inflatablekite.com, by renewing the unalterable Certificate of Authenticity system that the licensees put on their kites in order to distinguish their products from the infringers, by offering to the licensees new marketing tools and by starting a media information campaign.

For more information, visit our website at www.inflatablekite.com.

Bruno and Dominique Legaignoux