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Amway Cheats Inventor |
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 James Dyson is the British inventor of the "dual cyclone" vacuum
cleaner. In 1984, after years of development and marketing, Dyson was approached by the
vice president for global operations, Amway Corp. Amway wanted Dyson's vacuum cleaner. As
it turns out, they wanted it at any cost -- or at no cost!As Dyson describes in his recent book, Against
the Odds,
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Dyson and his partner met with lawyers
and company executives to hammer out a deal. After an intensive four days of negotiations,
they left for a couple of days R&R while the lawyers got everything ready to sign.
Arriving back two days later, they were presented with a whole new deal. They agreed to it
anyway. Between May and August, 1984, Dyson went to Amway headquarters in Ada, MI twice more to discuss the project and to give them drawings and specifications. In September, he received notice that Amway wanted to renegotiate again. However, a few days later he received a letter from Amway's lawyers accusing Dyson of misrepresentation on the grounds that the Dual Cyclone was not ready for market, although they did not say anything about terminating the agreement. Dyson and his partner responded that, in that case, they assumed Amway was abandoning the project, and the legal sparks began to fly. As long as the agreement with Amway was being contested, Dyson was unable to market his Dual Cyclone elsewhere, and the legal costs were horrendous. After several months, the situation was resolved in early 1985. Dyson repaid them all the money they had advanced, and in return terminated Amway's license and had his patents returned.
In November, 1987, Dyson received a phone call from a business associate in Chicago, who announced that he had just been on a sales call to a client and
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| What was most unfair I felt was that I had invested all that
money and all those years in research and development of my invention, and on patenting. I
had had to borrow and pawn and risk the welfare of my own family and now some enormous
organisation with more money and man hours than I could even dream of, were just going to
get on with selling their version. They were out on the market before us, and, it
transpired, they were claiming the credit for it."
Three years later, in late 1990, the lawsuits
against Amway ( When Dyson was getting ready to publish his book, Amway took legal action against him again in an attempt to stop publication. They did not want their actions to become public knowledge. Fortunately, they did not succeed. In 1999, Hoover UK tried to imitate a Dyson and James was forced back to court to protect his invention again. After 18 months Dyson finally won a victory against Hoover UK for patent infringement. |
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Dyson hired a US patent lawyer, who purchased one of
Amway's vacuums and took photos of it being demonstrated and then shipped it to Dyson. At
least four of Dyson's patents were being infringed. Additionally, it was obvious that
Amway had misappropriated the confidential information that Dyson had provided during
their negotiations.
