BarkRiver Ek Night Fighter

The name John Ek should still be property of the Ek family. About 15 years back, while I was in BU's ROTC program, I ran into a certain gentleman at Stoddards who was in the 11th SF group who knew a daughter or granddaughter of John Ek who was in the Army (second hand story so I don't know how accurate it is). I think that lacking a existing trademark, permission should be sought from his estate or descendants.
 
Property right in a trade or service mark can be obtained and maintained by only one means -- use of the mark in the marketplace. That is why, for example, SBC continues to use the old Bell symbol to at least a limited extent (on many coin telephones, for example) -- to maintain the rights in that symbol. That is also why someone in the midst of a dispute with another over rights to the mark EK, might want knives produced and marketed with the EK mark.

Registration acts as a legally undeniable notice of the asserted rights of the registrant in the mark.

The USP&TO website specifically warns that there may be common law rights (obtained by use) in a mark not registered with them.

A mark that is confusingly close to a mark in which another already has rights ("EK" vs "EK Knives") is subject to an action for infringment of the pre-exiting mark.
 
Can somebody tell me who is John Ek and what is Night Fighter model?
Is it like Randall, but less known. How BlackJack was related to Ek etc.

Thanks, Vassili.
 
That's a cool looking knife. I thought the blade was AUS something but I must have misread. I definitely have to pick one up if it's A2. Great price made by a great company. Although I don't really like the beadblast. Anyone know what tang it is?

Vassili,
I've been trying to find out who he is also. I don't recall finding anything when I did a search but you might want to try that.
 
2 MelancholyMutt

You should know this - please can you tell as history of Ek?

Thanks, Vassili.
 
I can tell you that the Night Fighter wasn't designed by John Ek. (His designs were the Commando knives and the #5 bowie (with exposed pommel like Striders) along with many others) Check my Newbie Photographer for a pic of an Effingham made Ek(Blackjack made)#3, which was designed by Ek
 
Ah... John Ek was a patriot knifemaker. Like "Bo" Randall, they made their places in history during World War 2 when good knives were hard to come by. Now since WW2, it is debatable which maker was more popular, but what is certain is that these two makers is among the most sought after, along with many other makers. Now, what hindered Ek's survival as a knife company is that it stuck mainly with military customers with rather few forays into making commercial and sporting knives. however, John's legacy is not lost as you will see many of his ideas and designs influencing makers such as Strider.

http://www.ekknife.com/ekstory.html


BTW, they have a new site although most of the information has stayed the same.
 
Did BlackJack make Ek knives same way Buck making Strider now?

Thanks, Vassili.
 
Yup. You can sorta say that. Mike Stewart mistook rights for OWNERSHIP of the name, unlike Buck and Strider
 
Yes and no... on vasilli's question.
My opinion is that Garageboy is right.
Licensing agreements vary a lot and without the contract to analyze, we can only speculate. I guess your analogy works, but the differences are that things went downhill between Blackjack and Ek somewhere and for a little while, someone who used to work for Blackjack started making Ek knives outside of the original agreement.

The Nightfighter is basically an Ek #5 blade shape with a Kraton handle and guard, without the full tang and pommel (which is something John Ek was adamant about having). It's in no way an Ek or Ek inspired knife save only for the logo imprinted. It's basically a knockoff.
 
I am dissagry.

Mike Stuart and Voughn Neely create this desighn - I have no reasans to not to belive him and from the original model 5 picture I can say - this is different knives, top grind is much longer on T. Erdelyi's knife plus and handle is not even close.

Because of some lawers games Mike now can not make his knive - this is very sad! This is bad! He stop making it already, but now as a bonus he have in addition you repeatetly calling him this way and compare him to asian clonemakers! The guy who all his life in this bussines! This is even worse! This shame!

I hope Mike will figure out the way to workaround this things with trademarks and will create another great knife even better that this one. A am looking forward for this new knife.

Now like to say that I am very sorry that I post this pictures of this great knife and expose Mike to all this harrasment.

Thanks, Vassili.
 
Lol Mutt..I'm sorry I don't mean to laugh..well..I do really..I'm not a nice person..(joke)
Vassili..you can post any knife you like that's why we're here and if it generates a little discussion, excellent.
Seriously though, Mutt raised the point in another post where the Bark River/EK knives were mentioned:
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=320179
and I disagreed. Cougar Allen the Super Moderator From France (I believe) seemed to think there was something to Mutt's point as well. It was along the lines that if, in the particular case mentioned, an Asian company copied Striders there was an outcry but if Bark River copied EK knives it was "business."
Which led one to wonder why? It's all in the other thread, anyway. I don't direct that at you, of course, Vassili, it was just interesting it came up.
Now I don't know WHAT to think. I just came to read about knives..
 
Well Rod, the difference between the Linton problem and the Ek problem is that those Ek knifefighters actually use the Ek logo and would probably have been stopped by customs (had they known about the issue) as "counterfeits" if they had been made overseas and imported.
 
Mutt,
YOU are being nice! Vass,check Mike's past & you might be a little surprised!! As for John Ek,met him when I was young,his bus.was in Miami,became friends with his son,who still lives somewhere in Miami,haven't seen him in yrs.HE was not to happy with Mike nor his business practices.As for me,"I" won't buy anything from MS ,been told too much!!!
Be safe,
Jim
 
Kukri4302 said:
Mutt,
YOU are being nice! Vass,check Mike's past & you might be a little surprised!! As for John Ek,met him when I was young,his bus.was in Miami,became friends with his son,who still lives somewhere in Miami,haven't seen him in yrs.HE was not to happy with Mike nor his business practices.As for me,"I" won't buy anything from MS ,been told too much!!!
Be safe,
Jim
Click to expand...

Jim, I would be thrilled if I had the honor of meeting John Ek himself. Maybe you should look up Junior... It might be a first step in a new generation of Ek knives.
 
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