Knock-offs.

Keith Montgomery

Keith Montgomery

Joined
May 9, 2000
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Not wanting to hijack another thread I thought it best to start another one.

Other than the licensing fee, just how much do you think that the selling of blatant copies of easily recognizable knives hurts the financial earnings of the original maker/manufacturer?

How many of the people that buy these knives would have ever spent the extra money it would have cost to buy the original? Some maybe, but I think the percentage would be minuscule. It could even be argued that some that buy these knives will eventually want to find out just how much better the original is and they will purchase one. Once again, probably not very many will do this either.

Please do not consider my words here to be an endorsement of knock-offs. Nothing could be further from the truth. I find the practice of stealing someone else's designs to be reprehensible. This was just something I found myself wondering and thought you folks might have some of your own thoughts about this.
 
Keith,

Yes, excellent idea, to move this to a seperate thread.

My question is, just how much is too much?

If you copy somones lock mechanism, the scale material, the blade steel, the blade shape,the pocket clip, and the color, is that too much?

Like I said, there is just not anything new under the sun as far as knives go, from what I have seen, so everyone is in fact copying what someone else has done, intentionally or not.

That being the case, all you can really do is copy a bit from this person, something else from that person, etc, and hopefully come up with a configuration that someone else has not come up with recently...I say recently, because it's almost surely been done exaclty or very closely before.

How much is too much, and how close is too close?
 
Defining a knock-off versus the recycling of multiple ideas is hard. I forget who said it, but I think the same idea applies here:
"I don't know how to define pornography, but I know it when I see it."

Well I can't give you a very good definition of a knock-off versus just a similar knife, but I know it when I see it.

Financially, I don't think it strains the big names too hard. Maybe I'm just naive, but I just don't think a lot of people who buy the knockoffs would buy a Spyderco or Benchmade if the knockoff didn't exist.

Still, I'm very opposed to copies and that's what got me flared up in the other thread. I went about it wrong, talking about the quality of the knife, when I should have been bitching more about the theft of intellectual property. I feel no need to post anymore in that thread, however, because it's become a pile-on, as you said, Mike.

But I just don't buy the, "There's nothing new under the sun" argument. Sure, the English language is just about the same as it has been for a long time, but is every book the same?

Even if you stick within a single manufacturer who keeps things fairly steady, Spyderco for example, each knife is very different. So just because knives hold general similarities: thumb stud, pocket clip, etc, they can still be very different. Is a Pinto the same as a Viper? They both have four wheels, windows, and an engine.

So, my basic argument:
Knockoffs (if I could define them) = evil (but not much of a financial strain)
Similar knives do not = knockoffs
I guess it's up to you to draw the line between "similar" and "knockoff."
 
I think that's something quite hard to nail down. We all have a consensus that a nearly-complete knock off is bad, but we all have a different way to draw the line.
I believe that as long as the part that you're copying is not protected by law (like Axis lock, the round thumb hole), and when you put everything together, it doesn't look like someone else's design, I think you're safe.
Knives are made of similar material and definatly would somewhat resembles other knives a bit, but it shouldn't have enough similarities to think that it was a slightly altered of the original (unless you got the license to do so of course).
 
Other than the licensing fee, just how much do you think that the selling of blatant copies of easily recognizable knives hurts the financial earnings of the original maker/manufacturer?
Click to expand...

The question is irrelevant.

The maker/seller of a knock-off is making money off of the efforts of another person without that person's permission. That is illegal and that is wrong.


And let us not forget damage to image too. If Company A makes a great lock, very strong, very reliable, and Company B comes along and makes a cheap rip-off that looks the same but hardly performs the same, and if Customer C buys Company B's knock-off and has it fail on him, he may believe that that lock design sucks and never buy one of Company A's. He may also tell all of his friends, "That lock design sucks. See those scars on my fingers? Those came from a knife that had that kind of lock on it and all I was doing was spreading peanut butter." And the friends, not knowing that the lock which had failed on Customer C, was the cheap knock-off and not the quality original, will also not buy Company A's lock. And they'll tell their friends, "My other friend has nasty scars on four of his fingers from one of those." And then they won't buy Company A's knives either. Suddenly, Company A's strong, reliable lock which they invested a lot of money to develop and tool for gets a repuation for being weak and unreliable. And then people start looking at Company A's other knives and saying, "Company A Cutlery? Aren't they the folks that make those horrible knives with the unreliable locks? You know, like the one that Fred's friend, Customer C, got cut up by?" A company's image is connected to its designs.
 
Chuck, I think that 'bout sums it up. What I could never understand is why a newer company couldn't throw together a new design or perhaps buy a new knifemakers design to help create an identity. It doesn't seem all that difficult.
Matt
 
Well I can't give you a very good definition of a knock-off versus just a similar knife, but I know it when I see it.
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I can give you a definition. A similar knife would be called a "derivative work." Legally, to be a derivative work it has to have some substantial and distinguising difference. The author of the derivative work has to make some substantial and distinguishing creative contribution.

And that, my fine friends, is how we get progress. If a great author makes a work and everyone else just copies him, then, as a society, we're stuck. A hundred years from now, we'll all still be making copies of that one work. But if we insist that each author makes a unique contribution, then we'll quickly have all sorts of variety to choose from and progress will be made.

If Maker A designs a great folding knife lock, and if Makers B, C, D, E, and F all decide that they don't want to loose all of their customers to A's great new design, then B, C, D, E, and F all have to get busy. They've got to come up with something new. B may tweak A's design in some way that he thinks will make it stronger. C may think that with a different change to A's design, he can make his better. D may rack his brain for days trying to come up with something, time he could be spending making knock-off copies of A's design, and, in the end, actually come up with a totally different design. E has a different idea on how to improve on A's design. And F thinks he's found a way to make a lock that's almost as strong as A's but for half the cost.

Now, instead of just umptine knock-off copies of A's design, we've got six new lock designs! That's progress. What do you suppose the chances are that one of the five others is actually better than A's original? The answer is that the chances that one of the five new designs is better than A's original is substantially higher than the chances of us getting a better lock design if all we have is five knock-off copies of A's design.

And if it does turn out that B's modifications do result in a better lock, then guess what happens next?

Answer: the whole game starts all over again and it won't be long before we have another five new designs.

Derivative designs are not only acceptable, but encouraged! They encourage innovation and promote progress. But knock-off copies are discouraged as they discourage innovation and lead to stagnation.
 
Chuck, those are excellent points you raise. Actually in your first post you say that my question is irrelevant and then go on to prove its relevance. All of those points you raised about the perception people might get about the quality of the original from the quality of the knock-off, show that these perceptions could lead to the incorrect asumption that the original knife is also junk. That being the case the copy could lead to a lowering of sales for the original knife. That would produce a negative impact on the earnings of the original maker/manufacturer.

The points you raise about derivitive works are spot on as well. Thank you for the very thoughtful input.

Mike, just add to that list the general overall outline of the original knife and I think you ahve described a knock-off perfectly.
 
Once you get past that there is a finite amount of materials to use in making a knife, the types of blades, grinds, etc. and then there is the skill in bringing it to reality, the thing you have left as a defining factor is the design.

The design sells a knife in most instances. Definitely for beginning buyers and sometimes for experienced buyers.

You have the expense of coming up with the design and the expense of advertising it. Then some cheap POS comes along and knocks it off.

Approach it this way - have you ever seen a knocked-off knife that was MORE EXPENSIVE than the one being knocked off? IMO - NEVER.

It's all about capitalizing on someone else's sweat, selling to unknowing or equally cheap buyers.

There are a "gagillion" knives out there -- why buy the "also-ran" when, with judicious review, you can get a lesser cost knife that is NOT a knock off and will probably be a better value to boot.
 
Originally posted by Keith Montgomery
Other than the licensing fee, just how much do you think that the selling of blatant copies of easily recognizable knives hurts the financial earnings of the original maker/manufacturer?
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As to how much they lose, I'm with Chuck--doesn't matter how much, what matters is that they do.

How many of the people that buy these knives would have ever spent the extra money it would have cost to buy the original? Some maybe, but I think the percentage would be minuscule. It could even be argued that some that buy these knives will eventually want to find out just how much better the original is and they will purchase one. Once again, probably not very many will do this either.
Click to expand...
This is kind of dependent upon how much the original cost. In the other thread, someone used Rolex as an example, which is a whole other story. With the Paragee, we were talking about a $10 knock-off of a knife that my friend bought for $25 at the last knife show. While it may technically be 150% higher cost--it's $25 dollars. There's no comparison between a $30 knock-off of a $4000 Rolex, and a $10 knock-off of a $25 knife. And I think that if a person has to struggle to come up with the $15 extra bucks, then they should be worrying about things like food and rent instead of how much a knife costs. The short answer I guess, is that it can take a lot of business away.
<hr>
As to what percentage of the design has to be a copy--it's just laughable that they didn't even have the decency to change simple things like the hole pattern or the clip (on the Paragee knock-off). Sure they got rid of a few holes, but I don't think anyone out there's going to dispute that it's a copy. I think that's as blatant an example as you're going to get.

-Z
 
I am marking this on my calendar! I agree with Chuck too!

Does it really hurt to steal $1 from someone who has a lot of money? Will it make much difference to them? Does that make it okay?
Stealing is wrong.
 
I think the issue is definitely worth discussing, and there are many things to be said about this.

One item is the definition of a knock off.

Let's take the Benchmade Stryker. It retails for $125. It has a liner lock, G-10 handles, 154CM blade. It is a decent tactical knife. If another company makes a knife that resembles the Stryker same shape, size, liner lock, ecxept the blade is maybe 440A, and the handles are aluminum, the liners would probably be some cheap stainless steel... maybe the knives are made in China... and the knife sells for, lets say $17. Is this a knock off? Whoever made this knife saw the Stryker and said to himself, "that is a good knife design, I can do that in China". Well, few "knife people" would go to a knife store and debate between buying a knife for $125 or $17. He (or she, or whatever) already has his mind made up as to what his limit is. Maybe its $125 or $150, or $180... but it is not maybe $10, or $30, or $125.

Is that a knock off or not, well, I think it is. What are some other words for it? Maybe it is an "imitation", maybe it is a "copy", maybe it is a "knock off". I think "cheap imitation", or "cheap knock off" are the best terms for it. As far as I can reason, it does not affect the income of Benchmade that much, because any Benchamde user or perspective user is not going to be seduced away from Benchmade for a knife that goes for $17 or thereabouts.

Now, if someone comes along and makes a knife that has the same shape, size, liner lock, maybe the handles are Aluminum or perhaps Zytel, or maybe even G-10... but something that is done with quality, and the knife holds its own as a quality tactical knife that is up to par with the Stryker, and it sells for maybe $85 or $100... well, that can be an imitation which Benchmade would have to worry about. Many people looking for something along the lines of a Stryker would be attracted to this other knife... if the quality is comparable, and the price is close enough to make people believe that the quality is comparable. Maybe these knives are made in Japan (as is Spyderco) or maybe they are made in Tawain (as is CRKT)... these are the companies who have the greatest potential for disturbing the business of good American knife companies... companies that can produce a knife of decent quality for a price that is less than the standard elite knives, note, not "a fractio of the cost" but just enough under the price as to attract some of their clientele.

The other day I was in a store and saw a knife made by a co. called RUKO. It was, dimensionally, a knife that was almost exactly like the Emerson CQC7. I think the price was maybe as high as $20. I asked the clerk about it, and he said that all RUKO makes is junk knives which they copy from other companies. When I picked it up, I could tell it was junk. Is Ruko in the wrong? Yes, because they are profiting off of Emerson's design. Is it hurting Emerson's reputation or profits, probably not. Nobody would buy a Ruko INSTEAD of a CQC7. Many cheapskates might buy it because they saw the CQC7 and thought it was cool, but didn't want to spend the money. Well, there is a spot in the market for crappy (krappy?) knives, and someone is going to make them, but they should come up with their own designs.

Designs and mechanisms that are patented are a special category. They should be punished, because that is what the law is for. The people making the knock offs are definitely in the wrong, because the customers are benifitting from a SPECIFIC funtion or mechanism without giving the inventor due compensation.
-Benchmade AXIS lock
-Emerson Wave opening
For example are two innovations that are patented. Even if someone is low enough to stoop to copying the design of a knife, the customer is going to find a knife design that more or less suits him well enough (don't get me wrong, I am not sanctioning the copy), but to give the customer the ease of a wave opening, or the specific advantages of an AXIS lock without compensating those who respectively invented them raises the stakes of the imitation and the security of the finances of each company. If a customer wants a WAVE, he had better fork out $150 - $200 for the Emerson, because only Emerson can give it to him, and if anybody else were to make it without authorization, that can hurt Emerson's finances drastically.

In short, copiers should be shot at... some at closer range than others.
 
Chuck got the image part down flat.
Before I found this place, I thought that lockbacks are not terribly good knifes. That's some generalizations that I've drawn from a couple of bad ripoffs, and to tell you the truth I didn't know what constitutes a bad lockback anyways.
I don't think that kind of image helps the companies who make quality knives (or whatever you wanted it to be)
Look at how many people have adversion to liner locks in this forum! Sure, some are legit, but plenty of those experiences are probably drawn from lemons and in some extent bad ripoffs.
Either way, It's still not right to have a blatant copy, however a "little bit here" as long as it's not legally protected usually are accepted by the masses. *shrugs*
 
Actually in your first post you say that my question is irrelevant and then go on to prove its relevance.
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Gee... I guess I did, didn't I? Sorry.

Well, "A foolish consistenency is the hobgoblin of a small mind." (R. W. Emerson)



There's another point that I didn't make because it's well-covered in THIS thread. (Actually, I didn't mention it because I forgot to.)

In the aforementioned thread, Mr. Ti. Underboss says,

When I started looking for a nice watch for my pesent (sic) to myself for getting the promotion I'd wanted I looked into anything and everything except Rolex.
Click to expand...

and some jerk named Gollnick who usually just posts useless noise actually said something relevant:

When I see someone wearing a Rolex, I assume it's fake. 95% of them are and the fakes are so good these days that you can't spot 'em without a 10x loupe.... I'd never wear a Rolex. If you do wear a real Rolex, you have to know that everyone you meet is assuming that it's fake...
Click to expand...

The flood of knock-off Rolexes (or is it Roli? I don't know. I don't do watches.) has caused the real ones to loose their cachet and, with it, their value. This hurts Rolex in two ways. First, it means that Rolex can't get as much for their new watches on the primary market. It also means that owners are finding that their Rolexes (or is it Roli?) are worth less on the secondary market. And, Rolex's exisiting customers are finding that the Rolexes (or is it Roli?) don't have as much cachet or as much cash value, so their less likely to buy another new one which hurts poor Rolex again.

Knock-off knives can have much the same affect.
 
There have been some excellent points made here, and I agree, for the most part.

Let me ask this though. What if someone unintentionally copies a design? Some knifemaker is laboring away over in say, S. Africa, and comes up with something that looks quite a bit like some other popular design, all by accident.
It could easily happen, because frankly, there are only so many ways to design a knife, especially a folding knife....Or so I would imagine, from looking at today's current crop of knives.
I'm talking overall design here...say 85-90% or thereabouts...Is that wrong? Should he just drop his design, once he finds out it's very close to someone else's design? What if it's a really great seller for him?

It's not all black & white, by any means..

I happen to think that copying is copying, just like stealing is stealing...It would seem to be almost impossible to make a knife without copying at least some of what someone else has done...so again, how much is too much? 75%? 80%?

I don't think it's for me to condone or condemn, because it's not my design, it's not my knife, and it's not my company.

Lots of companies sell knock-offs, quite a few make knock-offs, and every knife maker is copying someone else's stuff to some extent.
I'm not even remotely involved with any of that, except as a consumer, so therefore, why should I have a say?
 
Mike, in the example that you have given I do not think that this is copying. It is two people coming up with the same design by accident. Should the second maker stop making a successful model when he finds out that it looks like someone elses knife? Personally, I don't think so, but some people might disagree with me.

This is really not what I meant by knock-off. My comments were directed at companies that blatantly steel the designs of others. I think we can all recognize these knives when we see them. Some of these companies even give their knives the same name or model number as the original.

Even if some of the design features come from knives that preceded it, I do not think that it is difficult to come up with distinctive original designs. When I see the knives of Spyderco, Benchmade, M.O.D. and any other of the better knife making companies, I don't immediately think, "What a rip-off.". When I see these knock-off knives that is my first thought. That is how I judge a knife to be a knock-off.


*Edited to make it easier to read.
 
i think this topic is relevant to many different industries, one of my other hobbies is working on cars and let me tell you the knock offs are everywhere, and yes sometimes it makes me not want to get something cause everyone else has the knockoff, i.e some very nice very expensive rims, i want the rims but don't really see the point anymore since everyone else has the fake ones and will assume i have the fake ones too, however there are times when the knockoffs don't affect me much, cause whether or not there is a knockoff i would still get the real thing, but then some people can argue that knockoffs let those who are low on cash get something similar to what they want.
 
LOL, I have read all the posts in this and the other similar thread. I have come to some conclusions:
1. A lot of people take knives wayyyyyyy too seriously. Yes I am a knife Knut, but not to that extent.
2. I have been "guilty" of buying knock-offs (twice only, in the past) and I din't realize I was doing anything wrong as a consumer, as these products were available at my favourite knife shop.
3. There are arguments for and against this topic...and it becomes a highly emotional debate.
4. The definition of "knock off" or "fake" or "counterfeit", or "imitation" cannot be used interchangeably. These terms mean distinctly different things. A "knock off" or "imitation" is merely a copy or a look-alike of an original. The other terms have legal connotations and implications.
5. Everybody is saying the same thing in different ways.
6. Fake Rolexes etc. are illegal because they are using a registered name for their own product and this is illegal. I am not sure that this applies to knives though. I have not seen a fake well known brand in knives. It usually has a totally different name. I saw an example of this the other day in a knife shop here, of a very cheap Chinese knock-off of a Boker folder..the exact same shape, design etc. But it was not called a Boker...it was called a Gortek. And if it was illegal, why did this shop stock it? Just a thought.

If one were to take the emotion out of this completely, then it would not be wrong for someone to copy a knife design (or shape etc) and sell it under a totally different name at a much cheaper price, provided it was not passed off as an original. Frankly, it doesn't pay to buy these cheap imitations, other than to take up space in a drawer somewhere.

Finally, I hope I have not offended anyone and if I have I apologise in advance, as this was certainly not my intention. I have grown rather fond of all of you......;)
 
My point of view in this knock off is:
Quality.

I'd buy and use it because of the quality. Whether it is Rolex, wheel rim, or knives. It is even better if the counterfeit Rolex is difficult to spot, I would wear original and be safe from robbery, because 'everyone thinks it is a fake one'. If someone slicing oranges with a knock off knife and having difficulty, I could just step in, take my original and help him/her, thus teaching the poor knifer something about quality.

In the past, I did have knock off knives (not very well versed in knives yet, now better but still a lot to learn), steel as soft as plastic, cannot have decent edge, thus unsafe to use. However cool it is, it doesn't deserve me owning it.

Of course this is only my personal view. Have a nice day.
 
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