Cannondale my be out but they are not dead. Just send them an email with a pic of your product and ask if it's ok. If they say yes use the email as proof that you have permission.
They are good guys and I bet they wouldn't have a problem with it unless they no longer own the name or your guard is shaped like a swastica or something.
Ultimately companies won't sue over a small infraction like this, because it will cost more money to sue than they would get out of the lawsuit. I think he was just planning to sell them here and not put advertising up. I also would like to see if ris did ask for permission on that.
Good point everyone! I will use caution and I will also ask cannondale. i do understand that every big company has lawyers on retainer (whatever that means). I do not what to piss any one off, I just want to make a trick looking part that stand out from the rest.
One thing I did notice though is that whenever cannondale uses the symble i.e. there website and stickers, they do not have a trademark symble next to it. Don't they need to if it is a trademark?
If you modified the symbol slightly so that everyone still knows what it is but it isn??????????????????t a copy, then maybe you could get around the copyright problem and still achieve what you where hoping.