America's Cup: Emirates Team NZ fires broadside at North Sails over sail patent
by Richard Gladwell Sail-World NZ 18 Sep 01:05 BST
Emirates Team NZ - Day 21 - August 15 2026 - Auckland, NZ © Sam Thom/America's Cup
Emirates Team New Zealand CEO, Grant Dalton has issued a strong response to reports from USA of Court action by North Sails over a sail design patent that has been granted to the five-time America's Cup champions.
On Tuesday, September 15, North Sails, a Delaware-registered company, filed a 31-page brief in the US Court in Eastern Virginia to overturn the previously reported patent granted to Emirates Team NZ and its sail designer Dr Steven Collie.
The gist of the North Sails case is that "under the supply agreements between North Sails and the [America's Cup] teams, at the end of each competition, the
information that the teams obtained during sail development—thanks to the use of North Sails’ equipment, software, confidential information, and know-how—is shared with all participants and with North Sails in a so-called “collective design debrief.”
North Sails claims that the matters covered in the patent granted to Collie and Team New Zealand were in fact first developed by a North Sails designer, Matt Savage. North Technology objected to the patent being granted to Dr Collie/Team New Zealand; however, these objections were overruled.
The case has been picked up in Court case aggregators and circulated.
“We have not yet been served with any filings although have only just become aware of them," said Emirates Team New Zealand CEO Grant Dalton when asked by Sail-World for comment on the US reports.
"Emirates Team New Zealand absolutely disputes the claims that appear to have been made."
"From what we know it appears to a spurious attempt by North Sails to intimidate and pressure a team who has valid patents in their markets in US and Europe."
"North Sails have been aware of the patent for more than five years, have been making Emirates Team New Zealand sails using our technology it for several campaigns, have unsuccessfully challenged the patent in the US via a Post Grant Review process but never raised ownership."
"In fact, they have contractually acknowledged that Emirates Team New Zealand owns the patent and this filing is presumably a response to arbitral legal proceedings taken against Norths in NZ over the misuse and breach of the patent in sails made for other Teams."
"North Sails is owned by Oakley Capital, which in turn is the majority owner of Team GB1, which is competing against Emirates Team New Zealand in the 38th edition of the America's Cup in 2027. Team GB1 has sought to use the patent through a protocol change and was unsuccessful.”
Earlier, America's Cup Challengers were warned by Emirates Team New Zealand that they were taking a legal risk over possible infringement of a sail design/engineering patent owned by Emirates Team New Zealand, relating to how AC75 sails are designed and manufactured.
The documents were leaked to Sailing Illustrated, a twice-weekly live sailing webcast, and include correspondence bearing the North Sails logo and a legal firm representing Emirates Team New Zealand, along with the patent document, and reveal that the team intended to enforce a patent it held over sail design.
North Technology has contested whether the patent is a unique development and suggested a workaround - manufacturing the sails for the Challengers at its Sri Lankan facility, a country it says is outside the patent territories of the USA and Europe.
After the 2017 America's Cup win in Bermuda in foiling 50ft wingsailed catamarans, it was Team New Zealand's design team who spent several million dollars developing the AC75 foiling monohull concept, including the use of a double-skinned mainsail, and the need for sails that were capable of working across a much broader wind range than conventional monohulls and sail technology. In the previous three editions of the America's Cup, teams used hard wingsails instead of soft mainsails, and in the 2017 America's Cup, sail designers were redundant because all jibs were one design supplied by North Sails.
A significant part of this design exercise was the conduct of various feasibility studied by Emirates Team New Zealand to verify that their AC75 concept would actually sail - something that was doubted by many until the launch by the New Zealand team of the prototype Te Aihe in Auckland, in
For the earlier story sail-world.com/news/299654