Funny, hope this isn't a problem with Sal, if so, I'll remove it. But recently, a forumite asked me about the issue. Here's what I said:
"Facts:
* In the past, Spyderco has licensed the hole to other manufacturers, however, due to issues with BM not saying upfront it was Spyderco's trademark, Spyderco cancelled all contracts to their competition (note that custom makers are not their competition).
* BM Vex and other knives came out with the Spyderhole (registered trademark of Spyderco).
* Forumites brought it up on here and BladeForums.
* Insert break of one week or so, at which time we know that Kristi, Sal and others have seen the thread (and even moved one to Off-Topic, so we know for a fact that the saw the thread).
* After said break, we get told that there's an "agreement". Sal's tone was rather terse (or at least as much as one can gather from a post).
This is where the facts end. However, it's not that hard to join the dots.
Now, with a little thought, it's evident that the agreement wasn't made before the Vex came out, namely because Kristi, Sal and the rest had seen the threads, yet chosen not to answer them during that week or so. It simply makes no sense to allow us to argue if they could stop it by saying there was an argument in the first day or two.
Because of that, we surmise that the agreement was made after the Vex came out. Note the difference in size between Spyderco and BM. If Spyderco took BM to court, it would mostly end up with Spyderco being bankrupt or nearly so, even if they won.
Most BM fans will say "there's an agreement, so it's all fine". However, several of us believe that the agreement is along the lines of an out of court settlement, they type which goes along the lines of "we will pay you x dollars, and you will say that we did no wrong to you".
So legally, BM have done nothing wrong, and Spyderco will back them up. Morally/ethically, we have strong reason to believe that Spyderco is being short changed."
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