Maxace IP Theft Claim

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Petunia D. Feeble

Petunia D. Feeble

I sharpen things.
Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
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Birdshot_IV posted on IG today about a sort of informal cease and desist they received from Maxace knives regarding their reviews on the Honey Badger knife. Link here:

https://www.instagram.com/p/ByQzGinn_vB/?igshid=1vmfjhg9rv3z1

Maxace is apparently claiming the Honey Badger (1st pic) is a "clone" of their Balance (2nd pic) model.

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(Not my pics.)

I can certainly see the similarities in the handle, but the blades are pretty different. Close enough for IP theft? Idk. Worth bullying reviewers oan YouTube who simply didn't notice the vague similarities? Definitely not.

As far as I know there's no evidence of Maxace committing IP theft in the past, but it's still a little funny to see a Chinese company claiming to be a victim of it, especially on such a weak example, when so many of their contemporaries are founded on full fledged counterfeiting.
 
While the shape is similar, I think the Honey Badger's signature is really the texture on the scales. Opener is different, handle is definitely derivative of the Maxace for sure.

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Might be a great idea for a new business model...... That "Balance" is so bland vanilla that it is close to numerous offerings from multiple makers they could threaten. Maxace could be the patent troll for knives and claim that they invented the rounded corner for phones. Oh wait, that was Apple. This whole IP thing is so confusing, no wonder there are so many overseas companies that can't get it right.
 
They both look knife like but I don’t see them being clones of each other.

Someone is reaching here.
 
The designs are SO dang vanilla-generic that without copying their specific decorative motifs it'd be difficult to claim IP on it. Ornamental design patents are easy to get around, and there's plenty of arguments of prior art to pull from if you do even a little digging. I could probably flip to a random page in the Blue Ridge catalog and there'd be 2-3 knives with similar features in view.
 
Get this. maxace is going after youtubers lololol cant make that up.
https://www.instagram.com/p/ByQzGinn_vB/?igshid=41zpzwbjvz6z
Nick Shabazz, Frankie and bird etc.

also they are originally cloners. they have several cloned knives.
Maxace is owned and run by a man called Adan Chan. He is also the designer of the knives they produce. Adan isn't new to the knife world - he used to produce high end replicas of popular designs, such as Emerson CQC7, Strider AR and Shirogorov Cannabis. Waved version of the Stedemon DSG was also produced

Maxace didn't own a production facility, but order their knives to be made by other factories. Their first models - Balance and Wave were made by the Stedemon company. The Corvus was made by the Kevin John factory. Later came the Cicada, Halictus and the Red Queen and the Assassin (under the Dwemer brand).
Click to expand...

you can search this guy, maxace has made plenty of clones.

Heres the similarities.

To me they just see how popular the honey badger is because of the youtube shills making it so popular.

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I found these photos on each of the respective Instgram pages

Honey Badger
This photo is from one of the two models.
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Maxace

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Fox knives Core

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This is definitely a stretch. The knives are kinda similar at a glance, but the longer you look the more differences you find. I don't like Maxace going this route, especially in such a shaky claim. I'm now less likely to own one of their products because of this. Granted, being a lefty I wasn't super inclined anyway.
 
do we really need to remind people that 'ip' (intellectual property) cannot, and does not exist on a knife shape?

it applies to things which are mechanical - like the triad-lock or whatever, or, like in the case of spdy's hole - it's protected as a trademark (which imho is a stretch, but whatever)

given adan chan's history, this pic comes to mind: "pot... meet kettle"
pot-to-kettle-pot-kettle-black-pot-kettle-hello-pot-meet-kettle-meme.jpg
 
I'm not sure I'd call it a clone or IP theft...but one thing I can't shake, despite the minor differences, is how the outline of the handle scales are the exact same. Line for line, angle for angle. Maybe not to the same dimensions if measured, but they certainly are 'inspired'.
 
Idk they look pretty similar to me. I do think it is quite rich that a company that apparently got their start doing clones is now complaining that their design is being stolen. I’m sure that a lot of it has to do with the Honey Badger’s success.

That said from what I know Maxace no longer engages in cloning, though with the Chinese market no one knows. Maxace does not have their own factory apparently; so who says they can’t be commissioning clones under a different name.

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Just out of curiosity does this mean the SanRenMu Land 910 is not a clone of the Sebenza since it is similar but not the same?

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Sebenza is definitely a design more iconic to CRKs brand. So I understand the coke bottle shape is a trademark of Cocacola argument.

I’ll be interested to see how many members feel the SRM Land 910 is a violation whereas the Honey Badger is fair game. I also wouldn’t be surprised to find out that the Balance/H Badger design was originally a no name Chinese knife design.
 
Just for for Maxace to enter the Traditional Slipjoint market. Always wondered why this type of design scrutiny is not applied in that arena.
 
Lapedog said:
Idk they look pretty similar to me. I do think it is quite rich that a company that apparently got their start doing clones is now complaining that their design is being stolen. I’m sure that a lot of it has to do with the Honey Badger’s success.

That said from what I know Maxace no longer engages in cloning, though with the Chinese market no one knows. Maxace does not have their own factory apparently; so who says they can’t be commissioning clones under a different name.

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Just out of curiosity does this mean the SanRenMu Land 910 is not a clone of the Sebenza since it is similar but not the same?

IMG_1132ke02.jpg


Sebenza is definitely a design more iconic to CRKs brand. So I understand the coke bottle shape is a trademark of Cocacola argument.

I’ll be interested to see how many members feel the SRM Land 910 is a violation whereas the Honey Badger is fair game. I also wouldn’t be surprised to find out that the Balance/H Badger design was originally a no name Chinese knife design.
Click to expand...

I think the Sebenza has a much more distinct choice and the outright copying of the outline combined with the blue thumb stud makes those pretty clear attempts to copycat the Sebenza. While the Sebenza is a very simple design, aesthetically, it's also pretty specific in its stylistic choices. If you The Honey Badger/Balance designs are sort of what you'd get if you just took the individual functional design features and tossed them into an automated "design machine" that slapped them together. They have an aesthetic "skin" applied over those features, but the features themselves are all pretty blandly generic from a functional design standpoint, with little in the way of aesthetic decisions if you took away things like the texturing.

That's not to say that it's impossible for one to be derivative of the other, but there were clear choices made to differentiate the two aesthetically, whereas with the 910 it's clear that the opposite occurred.

Derivative designs can be a real grey area, but it's worth noting that that which is legal is not necessarily that which is just, and in this case there's no legal standing on Maxace's end unless the Honey Badger is copying a patented functional feature of the Balance or is using a non-functional aesthetic element that's trademarked by Maxace.
 
This would fall flat in court super quickly. It won’t come to that, though. This is just a really poor move on their part - an empty threat that reflects incredibly poorly on them.
 
Most knives look similar or even identical to some other knife. Maxace needs to get over itself. The blade and handle are as generic as you can get, there is nothing special about it. I mean, maxace puts an elongated hole on the blade, that is straight up stealing prior designs of elongated holes..they also act like two screws at the end is their design? Ha, I see that all day long. The handle shape itself isn't anything different then a thousand other designs.

Comparing Sebenza is not the same, as it certainly has a unique form, and many unique features.

Spyderco has a few unique design cues, which can be copied unfairly

maxace has zero unique features, this is my issue with their claim.

It reminds me of zepplin trying to claim people copy stairway to heaven, when not many know this but the stairway to heaven riff has been done EXACTLY note for note before many times before zepplin.

Not to mention, going to youtubers about it, is pretty rediculous. They know they have zero case against honey badger so they try to bully channels.
 
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