The BladeForums.com 2024 Traditional Knife is ready to order! See this thread for details:
https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/bladeforums-2024-traditional-knife.2003187/
Price is $300 $250 ea (shipped within CONUS). If you live outside the US, I will contact you after your order for extra shipping charges.
Order here: https://www.bladeforums.com/help/2024-traditional/ - Order as many as you like, we have plenty.
You are correct, except for one detail. While Liong Mah did submit his Kerambit design to Mike, and was subsequently approved for production, they never sealed the deal under contract. One thing for sure, M-Tech was never given authorization to use that design for production, and has yet to pay any royalites.
We'll see how this turns out. One of the major concessions China made to join the WTO is that the government will enforce copyright and patent protection. However, what is official government policy, and what is actual reality are two seperate things. It's too soon to tell if China will in fact continue the priracy practices indefinitely.
Interesting. The original design, as well as the custom versions executed by Brad Duncan, allows for reversable clip placement. This is a good indication of what can go wrong when you just copying something without understanding the design.
This was done on purpose. It acts as a cigar cutter with the blade exposed. Seriously, the idea was to maximize the blade length, which is one of the biggest short coming of a folding Kerambit.
(Just pickin' on ya, Tony. 
)
I won't debate that what you've said is a benefitial side effect of the process. But I'm never a fan of having the ends justifying the means. Cloning (the stealing of the design), and the lack of royalty payments, is still theft. No matter how you try and justify it.
I'll use this as an example. That is in fact an Emerson clone. So perfectly executed, they went ahead and installed the patented Wave feature. Which in effect, makes them guilty of Patent infringement, on top of copyright infringement. And since they're importing those into the US for sale, that's a violation of US Custom Importation rules concerning patent infringment.
OK, before we get way off track with examples, let's set something straight. 1) Jim Bowie did not invent the Bowie Knife. It was made for him by James Black, his blacksmith friend. 2) No one really knows what the original looks like, so it's hard to do a study to see if it's a "clone." 3) Finally, there's a length of time before a patent expires, and then it's open season for everyone. That length of time has long past for Jim Bowie.
I draw the line at what is legally enforcable. In this case, the Emerson Patent infringement on the Wave. The design patent of the Emerson Kerambit. And since Ernie Emerson stills has patent protection, he can legally ask that the M-Tech kermabit not be allowed to be imported and sold. Pretty straight forward I think.
And here's the crux of the problem. If you are willingly contributing to the success of "cloning" and if you are willing supportive by buying that clone, then you are making it that much more difficult for other to want to be innovative. If it's simply comes down to a matter of dollars, and you throw ethics out the window, why bother with the whole Patent process? If you follow your logic to the end, you've effectively argued for the end of Patent protection because it's meaningless, because you can't stop copying, because there will always be people that buy these clones, and because it's cheap. That's not what I believe in.
Who says he isn't pursuing them. Have you asked Ernie about it? I know for a fact that there are legal proceeding being bought against M-Tech by Mike Turber. And if invited, Liong Mah (the designer of the cigar kerambit) and Rich Despina (the designer of the fixed kerambit), both of whom are well respected members of this forum (Ancientsul and RDT respectively, would glad join Mike in a Class Action suit. This last part is not conjecture, it's fact. Both Liong and Rich are friends of mine.
You've touched on one of the reasons there's so much of a culture clash between the Western mindset and the Eastern mindset. Copying, or learning by rote, is considered the highest form of praise in Asian education. It's not here. But ideas, that can be patented, should be legally protected from copy so that the inventor can have a fair chance in reaping his rewards. Knife designs are afforded that level of protection.
As you cited above, there are some good benefits to having a lower cost option more readily available, but they should wait their turn if they wish to make an exact copy/clone. If not, they can copy portions of it, as long as no part that is copied is under copyright protection, while interjecting some of their own original ideas to come up with something different/but the same. The fact that they fail to even attempt to be original makes their cloning of a very good knife that much worse; makes my decision to never buy an M-Tech knife that much easier; and makes me want to educate as many knife lovers as possible.
Stich: an educated consumer is always the best customer. I'm not blaming the buyers for not knowing and understanding. I'm simply saying: now that you know, what does your conscience say? And if you buy the $15 one, here are the consequences.
tonyccw said:Way off topic here. How soon do you expect Diamler to start selling those cars here in the USA? And before you get on my case, I drive a ML320, which is made in Tuskaloosa, Alabama.
