Recent work, desert Ironwood handle

[Bigfattyt]

蓝山1234, please, continue to share your knives with us. I am very glad to see that this thread has had a positive discussion.

Intellectual property rights are not easy, and can be difficult to discuss without conflict.

It is hard to know where the line is, and how I personally even draw the line where I think it belongs.

I've studied Intellectual Property in lawschool. I do not practice it, but it is a very complex area of law.

I've worked at a company where IP lawsuits, patent trolls, and espionage were common concerns. I've seen larger companies outright lie to court's (and be caught at it) and seen competition plant moles, make pay offs, dumpster dive to find parts to reverse engineer, and claim our original processes were theirs.



Knives, especially innovative styles, areally worth protecting.

I do consider Loveless and Scagle designs to be in the public use. Maybe that us simply because most makers I've seen growing up had the patterns, or copied the styles.

It is tough to make a unique design that is instantly to recognizable as a specific makers work, and have it be a good balance of form and function at the same time.

I can think of many makers that have done just this. A lot of custom bowie makers have styles I can instantly recognoze, but a lot of their knives look similar to other bowie knives.

For a lot of those knives I'm not sure where I would draw any lines of origins.

I don't have the answers, just thinking out loud.

Hoping it's does not chase 蓝山1234 off.

 

[Park Swan]

Dare say that it is NOT an endorsement, but instead an acknowledgement of the OP's skill.

A maker copying another maker without giving credit/obtaining approval is STEALING intellectual property, plain and simple.

There can be arguments made when we are talking about very small and subtle design elements, but you would have to be blind, retarded and insane to not know the difference between that and something so stylistically/aesthetically unambiguously belonging to one specific maker.

Ernest Emerson has, as an example, made it very plain that makers/companies using the Wave feature without tacit permission are in violation of his ip rights.

Loveless and Tony Bose have given their designs away for years, and that is their choice....but Jerry Hossom has made a very clear case in this thread that he doesn't approve of his designs being appropriated by other entities without permission, and that should be respected.

Best Regards,

STeven Garsson

I fully agree. My intention was not to imply that Mr. Hossom was endorsing the copying of his work.