Update: Kelly Slater Wave Company
Almost exactly one year ago, Kelly Slater released a promo Youtube video called “My Totally Selfish Motivation”, describing his reasoning behind creating the Kelly Slater Wave Company.
“Pioneering wave generation and control technologies for an authentic world class surfing experience” was the company’s tagline, and they had apparently been working on R + D for a revolutionary wavepool for over five years.
This of course immediately turned the wavepool froth factor up to 11, but all was very quiet on the company’s front for about a year (despite numerous interview requests) until Slater went on CBS for a news special they called All Hail the King in which they showed a prototype: a circular pool with an arm that circulates around it, creating a perfect three-inch peeler. Not many specifics were given except that it’s perfect and that it’d be very expensive to build a working model.
Fast-forward another month. Aussie surf site Swellnet released a story detailing how Kelly was unable to get a patent for his technology as it their wave pool infringes upon Greg Webber’s design. (Webber’s patents were approved in 2005 under the company he created called Liquid Time. Check out Webber’s promo YouTube video.)
We asked Kelly about this whole thing; turns out 18 claims in their patent application were just approved on November 22nd. (Two were objected to on informalities and one claim was rejected.)
What follows is Kelly’s response to the Swellnet article, followed at the bottom by his company’s official press release letter about the matter. —Marcus Sanders