IP-2022-000001 - [2024] EWHC 2806 (IPEC)

The Boat Show Prototype was prepared and displayed at the Small Boat Show in Newport, Rhode Island in May 1987. Mr Duke notes distinctions between the Prototype and Boat Show Prototype were due to manufacturability, for example the thermoform moulds of the 22 inch polycarbonate Tank halves were improved and mahogany was used as the wood due to its stability, but that the frame design was "largely the same" and contained the "repeating motif of parallel structural elements".

Mr Duke explains his design was intended to create an aspect of "structural purity" bearing in mind the "Shaker furniture" style of "well-made objects with sparse elegance that could be used in everyday life". This noted guiding aesthetic led Mr Duke to a "clean design … with lots of plain edges without fancy ornamentation … in the structure it follows the "form follows function" school of design". The shape of the frame was also consciously designed bearing in mind the loading forces required in order to "drive" the rower. The flywheel tank needed to be round but the cross section was made largely rectangular, "to reprise the rectangular cross section of the wood parts" and the seat was "stitched as you would find in the seats of a fine sports car."

Mr Duke wanted to create a "welcoming emotional connection" and explained that "A big part of that was the sound and feel of the water… the use of wood for the frame" and from the geometry "trying to invoke the feeling of sitting in a wooden scull". The main aesthetics for the Prototype "arise from the wood of its Frame". It was also designed to be stored vertically, to be "beautiful and in view standing upright in a living room".

Subsequent to the Prototype, the WaterRower rowing machines have gone through a considerable number of iterative changes. Mr Duke explains the "distinctions between the 'boat show' prototype and the present WaterRowers were largely manufacturability changes". The types of changes noted include: eliminating glued joints, creating modular parts with bolted connections for shipping, and devising and moving a pair of trapezoidal 'Key Blocks'. Following the Small Boat Show in 1987, Mr Duke formed a corporation named WaterRower Inc with other partners interested in launching the business. Initially this was Mr Duke and Ralph Beckman (also an engineer /architect) and later Henry Sharpe.

Amongst these various changes to the WaterRower products, WaterRower Ltd's counsel drew attention specifically to the Key Blocks (see below an early technical drawing of a Key Block prepared by Mr Duke) and their re-positioning from Series 2 onwards. The two Key Blocks are said to complete the critical juncture at the top of the Footboard to connect the "Footboard to both the Top Deck and Bottom Deck" eliminating the need for several glued joints and preventing shear between the Top and Bottom Deck. The main visual point is that the positioning of these trapezoidal Key Blocks means the footplate was moved from being flush with the top of the Main Rails which the seat moves along (see this below in a picture of a Series 1 Version 1 model) to being tucked down between the Main Rails – putting the users heels between these Main Rails (see below in a picture of a Series 2 model). Mr Duke's evidence is that this "opened up the volume" as a result, widening the distance between the Main Rails (noted as an increase in width between the rails from 8.5" to 10.25") and that this change "was an important aesthetic improvement that went beyond manufacturability". Mr Duke's view is that regardless of this change between Series 1 and 2, "Both ways it was narrow like the gunnels of a single scull". As a consequence of the change Mr Duke also noted the flared footplate in the Prototype and Series 1 Version 1 was changed to a footplate with parallel edges.