Smart Parts Patent, wait a minute!!

[Andy-Yorkshire-Paintball]

I have read with interest the Smart Parts Patents thing but I have one very big problem with it.

I have tried to patent, trademart, copyright things before. Some sucessfuly, some not.

If Smart Parts really did invent the electronic marker, then all good luck to them, anyone would do the same in their shoes. It's called business.

However I don't beleive that they did invent or manufacture the first electronic paintball marker.

The older ones amongst us (those who can think back to around 1990), well before the Shocker was even thought of will remember a nasty piece of kit called the Sabot Cannon.

The Sabot Cannon was the first ever (to my knowledge) electronic paintball gun.

Now I don't know how this would effect the validity of a Patent in the US but I am sure it would effect a UK patent.

Part of the criteria surrounding a patent is that it should not have been thought of before and should not have been shown to a third party prior to registration.

Comments please!!

 

[QuackingPlums]

Yup.

In the UK if an idea has been published before (even if some nutter writes into PGI and says "wouldn't it be great if...") then the patent cannot be granted. If it does get thru the patent office, you can challenge the patent, which usually results in it being overturned. It happened to James Dyson.

Not sure if the US patent office runs the same way, but companies should be looking at challenging the patent, not fighting the suit.

 

[L J]

i thought SP wasnt patenting EVERY electronic marker, but a specific type like a leaf switch or sumthing like that ie. what the shocker and impy is now based on.....

 

[John C]

They have a patent on a marker which has a battery and a switch, just like all the electronic paintball guns including the ones which predate the shocker.

So yes it coveres every marker.


****ers.

 

[L J]

so why is everyone so against them? they simply did the smart thing which they realised in the long run, which was patent it before someone else did, and now other companies are are getting the blunt end, surely this is just simply business ethics? ok so people are angry, but it isnt a market domination thing, i guess SP owners just want some cash

p.s. dont know precisely what im talking about, also drinking, so maybe be wrong

 

[Andy-Yorkshire-Paintball]

No, the point is that Smart Parts seem to have "Patented" an idea that they didn't actually have. It looks like they backdoored a patent on "Any electronic paintball marker with a switch" whilst no-one was looking.

The fact that there was an "electronic paintball marker with a switch and a battery" even before there was a Smart Parts company seems to have eluded everyone.

You can patent an idea as long as a search comes up with no objections. The manufacturers of the Sabot Cannon were most likely not around or not in a position to know about it.

Andy

 

[John C]

Like Andy says, there were several electropneumatic paintball devices invented before the shocker, so smart parts has no right to demand money of anyone.

I never bought a smart parts product since an original AA barrel (about 4 years ago) because i have seen the piss poor quality of their design and manufacture.

We as consumers will lose out in the end.

 

[bruce]

I dont think its the business ethics that have rilled most people, but the way in which SP went about it.

From what i cab gather Sp had patents on there products, then last year they extend the patents (basically changed the patent), the extend patent took into account switch operated electronic paintball guns.

This extend patent then allowed Sp to start sueing other companys stating they infringed the patent. They started by kicking the small guys ICD, because once they have set a precedent it a lot easier to start on the bigger players.

The fight was lost once NPS and DYE agreed to produce markers under the SP patent.

So if your going to boycott SP products you should also boycott DYE and NPS products (matrix, timmy etc.) as they have helped SP cause no end.

Its an intresting case, as i know John rice from WDP had the plans and designs for the angel a while before Sp produced the shocker and the impulse, and as the impulse takes a lot of its design features from the angel. Who infringed whos patent.


Bruce

 

[dnafwtbtitft]

Originally posted by Andy-Yorkshire-Paintball
The older ones amongst us (those who can think back to around 1990), well before the Shocker was even thought of will remember a nasty piece of kit called the Sabot Cannon.

The Sabot Cannon was the first ever (to my knowledge) electronic paintball gun.

Now I don't know how this would effect the validity of a Patent in the US but I am sure it would effect a UK patent.

It would affect it if you have any solid proof rather than just your memory. Do you know of any articles on it? Do you know if one still exists? Do you know how to find any of the people involved in it?

Originally posted by cockersrule
they simply did the smart thing which they realised in the long run, which was patent it before someone else did, and now other companies are are getting the blunt end, surely this is just simply business ethics? ok so people are angry, but it isnt a market domination thing, i guess SP owners just want some cash

Smart thing? They patented something which was common knowledge and with plenty or prior art, and then manipulate their patents and the system to cover other innovations by different companies?

What they have done is like me telling the police I have a painting just like one of yours, stealing your painting, signing my name in the corner, and then saying it's mine because it has my signature on it... How will the police know it's yours and not mine? How will you prove it? Then I go off and sell reproductions of it by the thousand...

As far as I am aware SP haven't been responsible for ANY of the innovations they have patents on. They either bought the ideas from other people/companies. Forced other companies into bankruptcy in order to get their IP, or just went ahead and patented ideas other people had but didn't bother to patent, because they didn't think it was worth it due to too much prior art or because it wasn't legimately patentable. That never worried SP. They have claims in their patents that were common knowledge way before they even filed the patents. But the USPTO doesn't know this and so grants patents for SP to go off and start sueing legitimate companies. Billy Snr, Billy Jnr and Adam are not innovators in paintball. They are very well versed in patents though (Billy Snr is a patent attorney) and they have been involved in illegal practices with patents before.

It's not business ethics.

Take a look at something which happened back with the motor industry... it's remarkably similar...

http://www.bpmlegal.com/wselden.html

 

[Hatts]

Originally posted by dnafwtbtitft
It would affect it if you have any solid proof rather than just your memory. Do you know of any articles on it? Do you know if one still exists? Do you know how to find any of the people involved in it?

Yes there are several models still in existance all based around a similar design and on display in the Paintball Museum at the EMR site in Pensylvania (which is a great site if you ever get chance to visit).

There is at least one article I can think of in an old paintball mag I have lying around somewhere that is possibly pre-1990, certainly pre-'93.

Not sure who was behind it's creation but it'll probably have it in the article I imagine.