Why we claim to be the first belt drive motors.

Mud Buddy celebrates its 26th year as the largest mud motor manufacturer in the world. Its owner, Glenn Foreman started Mud Buddy near the Great Salt Lake in Utah in his garage with the goal of building the finest marine mud motors.

Today, Mud Buddy celebrates over 46 innovations that have advanced the mud motor industry to where it is today, the envy of the world. Three of its most important innovations are the first belt drive short tail (HDR), the first belt drive longtail, and the first gear driven F-N-R transmission vertical short tail design (Sport V). In addition, Mud Buddy has two drive seal and bearing U.S. patents and one propeller design patent.

Glenn Foreman built his first mud motor in 1993, and in 1994 built his first belt driven motor using a Hirth engine and belt drive from a Rupp snowmobile. That same year Glenn built his first belt driven airboat. In years 1999-2000 he dusted off the belt drive plans and built the prototype Mud Buddy Z drive gear reduction short tail frame. Within three years the Hyper Drive was perfected, shown to the public in 2003, and was the first commercially built belt drive. In early spring of 2004, dealers across the country had access to the new Hyper Drives.

Then in 2005, Gator Tail shocked the industry and filed a federal suit against both Mud Buddy and Go Devil simultaneously claiming we infringed on their two belt drive design patents, claiming they were the first to build these and demanded we stop building belt drive mud motors. The move threatened to shut down two major mud motor companies. After a lengthy and unnecessary, and costly court case, Gator Tail lost the suit, the District Court in Louisiana awarded non infringement to Mud Buddy and Go Devil, citing Mud Buddy and other prior art. Gator Tail filed an appeal to the Unites States Court of Appeals (patent court) who's three federal judges ruled 3 to 0, on June 22, 2015 that Gator Tail was not the inventor, the Federal Court revoked their 40 plus claims and revoked their two patents. Glenn Foreman was the inventor and was the first to build these motors at the same time and before Gator Tail. What a relief it was to be able to continue building the motors we designed.

We worked hard to get where we are today and respect our competitors and the innovations every one of them bring to our industry. We are the original and built the first belt drive period. Today it is still the best.

Mud Buddy for life...

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News Article, June 2015

Mud Buddy announced today the United States Federal Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington D.C. has upheld the 2014 Louisiana District Court ruling that certain Gator Tail patents for a short tail belt shallow water motor are invalid.

Nearly eight years ago, Gator Tail filed suit in Federal District Court in Louisiana against Go-Devil of Louisiana and Mud Buddy of Utah. Years later and after a three day trial, the Louisiana District Court found the Gator Tail Patents 7,052,340 and 7,297,035 invalid due to obviousness, meaning, one of ordinary skill in the art would combine existing technology in a predictable manner to design and build a short tail belt drive motor with a horizontal motor.

As part of its ruling, the Federal Louisiana District Court noted that significant evidence at trial, indicated Mr. Glenn Foreman, the owner of Mud Buddy developed the Mud Buddy surface drive motor before and simultaneously with Mr. Broussard’s development of the Gator Tail motor.

Mr. Foreman commented, “Justice has prevailed and we are pleased the Federal Appeals Court panel of Judges ruled “all Gator Tail claims at issue of the two patents in suit are invalid under 35 U.S.C. § 103.”