Ropes Courses, Inc.

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Ropes Courses, Inc. — Company Profile

Overview. Ropes Courses, Inc. ("RCI," now branded and commonly referenced as RCI Adventure Products) is a private, employee-scale manufacturer headquartered in Allegan, Michigan. It was founded in 1989 by Jim Liggett, who remains CEO/owner; there is no public ticker and no disclosed parent. Crain's Grand Rapids reported roughly $20 million in annual revenue and about 70 employees, with additional locations in Destin, Florida, London and Malaysia. Third-party databases give inconsistent size estimates (from ~39 to 250 employees), so headcount should be treated as approximate.

Products / operations. RCI is an operating company that designs, engineers, manufactures, installs and services indoor and outdoor adventure attractions. Its lines include Sky Trail and Sky Tykes ropes courses, Sky Rail zip tracks, Clip 'n Climb climbing walls, Adventure Trail net-play courses, Amaze'N Mazes, and the "Destination" series acquired from WhiteWater West's dry-play division in 2019. The company also operates its own Allegan Event Center attraction. Installations sit in zoos, malls, family entertainment centers, amusement parks, resorts and cruise ships.

Litigation posture. RCI is a patent-owning operating company that asserts its own product technology, not a non-practicing entity. In the tracked cases it appears once, as plaintiff, and never as defendant (one plaintiff case, zero defendant cases). The one tracked suit is JiMi IP, LLC et al. v. Funcity Adventure Park, LLC (N.D. Ill., Eastern Division, 1:24-cv-05275, filed June 2024, terminated April 2025). RCI appeared as co-plaintiff alongside JiMi IP, LLC, a licensing/assertion entity whose asserted patents list RCI founder James Liggett among the inventors (per public assignee records); the precise corporate relationship between the two is not confirmed in the sources reviewed. Venue was the Northern District of Illinois, not a notoriously plaintiff-friendly district such as the Eastern District of Texas.

Case context. The asserted patents were US 8,066,578 (challenge course), US 10,478,737 and US 11,376,513 (zip track and system), covering integrated ropes-course/zip-track structures; the accused products were Funcity's ropes course and zipline attraction in Algonquin, Illinois. The action ended by stipulated dismissal without prejudice, with no merits ruling and no damages or injunction on record, subject to conversion to with-prejudice absent an enforcement filing within 90 days. RCI also previously sued WhiteWater West Industries for patent infringement in Nevada (2009).