I am not that kind of athlete. I wish I could react by narrowing my focus, by directing my emotion towards the pedals and to nothing else, but I cannot. And so I spent most of Track Worlds staring vacantly out the window of my hotel room, crying in the bathroom at the velodrome in between horribly executed bunch races, or attempting to ride rollers for twenty minutes and giving up halfway.
This isn't the first time we've seen a fashion patent quibble lead to legal action. Last August, Lululemon took Calvin Klein to court over their "Astro" pants that were a little too similar to the former company's yoga pants. But how much is intellectual property protected in an industry that seems to run on copies and fakes? Forever 21 seems to be doing just fine with its business model, winning most knockoff cases that come its way.
Q1 Margins2009201020112012 Gross42.88%53.77%58.75%55.05% Operating12.06%23.48%27.67%25.57% Profit7.98%14.16%17.87%16.33%In the company's 10Q filing, it explained that the primary reason for the decline in gross margins was due to higher labor and raw material costs. However, it was still up 128 basis points over the 2011 period. Now despite the 370 basis point decline in gross margins, operating margins only declined by 210 basis points.
