CS vs CRKT Suit Settled

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fishface5 said:
Glad to see the case is over. We will never know the terms because they are confidential. The question of whether the suit hurt or helped either company can only be guessed at by looking at changes in 2015 and maybe 2016 sales figures for both companies compared to pre-lawsuit, but memories are short and so many other factors effect sales I doubt any sound extrapolation could be reached. In terms of "knife police," the appropriate means for that is litigation by consumers if they are actually harmed by a defective design
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"Three can keep a secret if two of them are dead."
 
KenHash said:
Fine. It won't stop you from buying Cold Steel products. But are you really gong to hesitate to recommend a specific CS model that's exactly what someone is looking for, because of this court action that got settled to both parties' satisfaction?
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Yep. I haven't recommended a Cold Steel knife on the general forum since this suit came out. If there's another company that also qualifies for the poster's requirements, I recommend them. If not, I simply ignore the thread and don't recommend anything at all.
 
DShiflet said:
Yep. I haven't recommended a Cold Steel knife on the general forum since this suit came out. If there's another company that also qualifies for the poster's requirements, I recommend them. If not, I simply ignore the thread and don't recommend anything at all.
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That's great. It's a free country. I normally avoid recommending a company only if their quality leaves something to be desired
or their customer service is poor. I do make some exceptions to that but none involve legal cases.
 
KenHash said:
Sorry but I disagree. You may well be in the minority, but watching the numbers of CS haters BEFORE this lawsuit announcement and seeing these haters come pouring out in droves suggests to
me that "CS Lovers" didn't suddenly all become outraged over something that had ZERO effect on their own lives or even knife choices or habits. But the arguments that ensued ensured that Cold Steel was THE topic of discussion.
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Correct Ken. until this [moronic] lawsuit, I had been an avid supporter of CS. Having owned several, traded, given away or lost to family members though had left me CS-less for a few years. Even when I didn't have them, I touted them as any fanboy would. Literally and no BS, dozens of Officers on my department bought CS knives at my recommendation....from Recon Tantos and SRK's, to voyagers [the old style].........GOD, I miss my ole [original] voyager..... Some of those officers went completely stupid spending on bucket-loads of blades [they are also collectors]...

But this suit pissed me off enough to never again buy or promote their knives. I'm glad I didn't have any when the suit was announced because I would have snapped them in half in a bench vice. Call it 'petty' or 'immature'....whatever dudes, my opinion and I'm entitled to it. To me, it's nothing short of using extortion to subvert the sales of a competitor company over the use and definition of a word. Lynn Thompson went full retard with this one. Never go full retard.
 
Never go full retard.
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:)

I would haven't felt as bad about it if Lynn put out a statement to the effect of:
I'm doing this because I can. I've got lawyers and s#!t y'know!

I know I told you guys I did it for others but that's because I know some of my fans are really stupid. :D

Y'all are a bunch of tricks.

Call me "Pimp Daddy" Sword guy Lynn.

Later bitches.......

Lynn C. Thompson M.D., ACE, Esq.
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I'm done now. I'll shut up. :)

Joe
 
I'm pretty much unaffected by all this, because at the end of the day, it has absolutely nothing to do with the knives themselves. If I weigh in its against CRKT for marketing chintzy models as hard use and the customers that buy them under these conditions can be absolutely blindsided by its failure. I would much rather CRKT themselves nix the tagline rather then have them lose it in a suit. That would be embarrassing. And if you think CS actions are the same, just know that part of them is nothin but scar tissue now. I will continue to buy CS, on the grounds that I am a knife itself kinda guy, not a company guy. I may buy CRKT down the road for their tacticool looks, but I will make sure to buy a metal scaled model and not the crummy Zytel that has failed me before and failed in the video that started all this.
 
RevDevil said:
I thought that credit went to a gentleman named Bob Lum.
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Design of the Americanized tanto point? Yes. But there can be no doubt that it was Lynn Thompson who marketed the American tanto to the world.

Danke42 said:
Regardless of being historically correct it was the Star Wars of the knife world. It's one of the knives that is a before and after benchmark.
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Totally agree. And your Star Wars analogy is perfect--groundbreaking and unique retelling of an old story presented in an updated way at the right time in the right place. The Cold Steel Tanto was easily as pivotal to the knife world as the Lile First Blood Bowie.

druid189 said:
To me, it's nothing short of using extortion to subvert the sales of a competitor company over the use and definition of a word.
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That's fine if that's the way you see it. But in the now-closed thread on this topic I touched on at least one way that CRKT's advertising of its folders as "hard use" may have hurt Cold Steel's sales in a very tangible way over the past decade. The military post exchanges of the mid-2000s were replete with lots of Cold Steel products, including SRKs, Recon Tantos, Voyagers, and even Scimitars. But I haven't seen a Cold Steel knife in a PX in years, while they're full of CRKT products now. As I said before, I am no expert in the PX/BX/MCX procurement process. But I can't believe that CRKT's unrelenting ad campaigns marketing its knives to military, law enforcement, and first responder personnel had nothing to do with those purchasing decisions.

If I had to hazard a guess (and this is pure speculation on my part), Cold Steel gritted its teeth in silent disgust for years as it watched CRKT's military market share grow based on glossy ads, glowing magazine articles (when was the last time you saw a Cold Steel knife on the cover of a knife magazine?), and unfounded durability claims. Then when Cold Steel tested some of CRKT's knives and found that it had lost untold numbers of sales to a company whose knives couldn't come close to Cold Steel's in performance, Thompson got angry and decided to do something about it. You may think that Cold Steel's lawsuit was frivolous, but you can't have any way of knowing whether or not it was groundless.

-Steve
 
Perhaps, as ha been repeatedly observed, there are factors other than lock strength that drive purchasing decisions. Perhaps "performance," in some minds, involves more than lock strength.

Thus, some purchasers might overlook Cold Steel's claims of "virtually indestructible" and buy other brands.
 
Yeah. We can't say who won or lost.
if you go take a look at CRKT's webpage, you'll find that 'virtual fixed blade' is still there- front and centre.
http://www.crkt.com/knifeinnovations

Seems a certain balloon full of hot air might've got punctured....I bet he won't make a video of that. ;)
 
The Whip said:
That's fine if that's the way you see it. But in the now-closed thread on this topic I touched on at least one way that CRKT's advertising of its folders as "hard use" may have hurt Cold Steel's sales in a very tangible way over the past decade. The military post exchanges of the mid-2000s were replete with lots of Cold Steel products, including SRKs, Recon Tantos, Voyagers, and even Scimitars. But I haven't seen a Cold Steel knife in a PX in years, while they're full of CRKT products now. As I said before, I am no expert in the PX/BX/MCX procurement process. But I can't believe that CRKT's unrelenting ad campaigns marketing its knives to military, law enforcement, and first responder personnel had nothing to do with those purchasing decisions.

If I had to hazard a guess (and this is pure speculation on my part), Cold Steel gritted its teeth in silent disgust for years as it watched CRKT's military market share grow based on glossy ads, glowing magazine articles (when was the last time you saw a Cold Steel knife on the cover of a knife magazine?), and unfounded durability claims. Then when Cold Steel tested some of CRKT's knives and found that it had lost untold numbers of sales to a company whose knives couldn't come close to Cold Steel's in performance, Thompson got angry and decided to do something about it. You may think that Cold Steel's lawsuit was frivolous, but you can't have any way of knowing whether or not it was groundless.

-Steve
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military procurement is not much different than the average "bid war" in the civilian realm of commerce. The Space Shuttle has over 30,000 moving parts, provided by several hundred subcontractors and it is all put together by the lowest bidder. That's how the military works. If CRKT underbid CS for products and won the contract, perhaps LT should stop experimenting with customized steels and go back to what works to again win the bid. I don't think it has anything to do with the "promise of a better lock" as much as it has to do with providing "X" amount of product at "Y" amount of cost [to the military]. That just an opinion though.

And let's not mince words...the lawsuit claim is ONLY valid if a lock failed under NORMAL use. Batonning a knife not intended to be batonned is not NORMAL use; using a knife as a prybar that is not intended to be one...etc, etc...is all technically abuse [just pointing out examples]. But that's not [really] the point.

High[er] end steels really only appeal to a knife snob. I've said it a hundred times before - the common man wants a decent blade of "X" strength and "Y" sharpness to handle "Z" job at an affordable price. CS, in screwing around with "better" steels changed their price point. The common man doesn't give a crap about the high[er] end steels when 10XX or 5160 will absolutely do the job for them and at a cheaper cost.

My opinion only, but THIS ^^ is where I think CS started losing customers/sales.
 
ursamajor said:
Hilarious.
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Except you altered what I actually said, which was:

druid189 said:
But this suit pissed me off enough to never again buy or promote their knives. I'm glad I didn't have any when the suit was announced because I would have snapped them in half in a bench vice. Call it 'petty' or 'immature'....whatever dudes, my opinion and I'm entitled to it.

To me, it's nothing short of using extortion to subvert the sales of a competitor company over the use and definition of a word. Lynn Thompson went full retard with this one. Never go full retard.
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Nice try though
 
druid189 said:
military procurement is not much different than the average "bid war" in the civilian realm of commerce. The Space Shuttle has over 30,000 moving parts, provided by several hundred subcontractors and it is all put together by the lowest bidder. That's how the military works. If CRKT underbid CS for products and won the contract, perhaps LT should stop experimenting with customized steels and go back to what works to again win the bid.
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You are aware that the new steels didn't happen until THIS YEAR, and it's not like CS was winning all those bids in the past, right?

In other words, quit jumping to conclusions that can be shown to absolutely, 100% have NO basis in fact.
 
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