Don’t blame Shane Chen if you get buzzed by a Solowheel the next time you’re walking down Pine. “They are not mine,” he says. “They’re all knockoffs.”
For the past decade, the man behind the electric-powered unicycle regularly seen shuttling Amazonians between HQ and Capitol Hill condos has tried to stop Chinese manufacturers from copying his inventions, plural. His hoverboard has inspired even more imitation abroad. But patent lawsuit after patent lawsuit has proven fruitless in a country where intellectual property is less protected.
Chen would know. He grew up in Beijing before moving to the U.S. in the mid-’80s, founding a company that developed scientific instruments
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