Smith & Wesson 1500 = Rip-Off?

M

Mercury

Joined
Jul 16, 1999
Messages
151
Is it just me, or is the Smith & Wesson 1500 auto like a 100% blatant rip-off of the Benchmade Mel Pardue designed 3500 auto and 350 liner-lock. Seriously, aside from the blade on the S&W being ridiculously shiny and therefore NOT fit for police use (Here I come! Please shoot me, you know I have a knife because no one bothered to subdue this garish blade shimmer). It's not like this is some hack 440c rendition job either (see the ever so classy "Chicago Spike", and that crap Master Knives rendition of the SOCOM), it's another factory company stealing a design and running with it. It's not as if there is nothing anyone can do about it, if Benchmade has to pay Spyderco for use of the magical HOLE (I never get tired of giggling at that, it's a HOLE for god sakes!;-), then why can't Benchmade do the same; Lay the smack down on Smith & Wesson for stealing the likeness of a very distinctive piece of cutlery.

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Robert Joseph Ansbro
 
Yes the 1500 is a outright ripoff of the BM3500 (was there ever any doubt?). Like all S&W autos the quality is lacking in this knife. I doubt that the shiney finish of either the S&W 1500 or a satin finish BM3500 is of concern to any Police-
#1)Knives are generally used by police as a tool not a weapon, if they are then it would be a last resort and "steathness" is not an issue as the officer would already be face to face with an attacker.
#2) The 3500 is way too small to be a good choice as a weapon, it's a nice pocket knife but I wouldn't want my life to depend on it.
 
Actually, that is an excellent point. Most of the time I think of automatic knives as offensive / deffensive weapons, but you're completely right; AFO carriers have other, more effective means of protection. I do recall a police officer I was talking to once at a parade mention that the only reason he carries an auto is because he needs to deploy the blade VERY quickly for release of seatbelts in like car accidents, and strangely enough, to cut down people who try and hang themselves (must happen more often then I can imagine... no joke, what a crazy job, but god bless them). Thanks for the insight.

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Robert Joseph Ansbro
 
I haven't gone looking for an image of the S&W 1500, to know whether or not it is originality-challenged, but with some of the other knives I've met under that name, I wonder why a company that is mainly known for making high-quality firearms would license its name to a second-tier line of knives, if it must have its name on a line of knives.

As for "tool vs weapon," the Benchmade AFO has been issued to US Coast Guard rescue swimmers. These are not people who sneak about in the dark to cut and slash smugglers and terrorists. These are people who pull people out of the water after some mishap, and the knife is safety equipment.


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- JKM
www.chaicutlery.com
AKTI Member # SA00001
 
Mr. Mercury wrote:

I do recall a police officer I was talking to once at a parade mention that the only
reason he carries an auto is because he needs to deploy the blade VERY quickly for release of seatbelts in like car accidents, and strangely enough, to cut down people who try and hang themselves.

Yeah right. As if a thumb stud or blade hole wouldn't be fast enough. He carries the auto for the macho feeling it gives him.

(A poster of less class than myself would add some comment about the officer at least having one tool he can deploy reliably, but I would never go there. No. Not me. Never.)

As Mr. Mattis pointed out, the major reason for professional carry of automatic knives is not speed, it is the ability to deploy the knife easily and reliably with only one hand. Thumb studs and blade holes are nice, but try using either under extreme stress, with hands numb from cold or maybe injury, wet with water or maybe blood, and/or with heavy gloves on.

Occationally, one of my other hobbies, Amateur Radio, takes my up a few hundred or even thousand feet into the air on a radio tower. When you're 1000 feet up a tower and the wind picks up and the tower starts to sway, and the rain starts coming down and you hear the sounds of approaching thunder, this is no time to have, as I once did, your pant leg get hopelessly snagged by some piece of hardware hanging off the tower. My BM 9700 opened easily and I cut my pants free.

Now, back to the original question: is S&W ripping BM off? Absolutely.

I don't follow guns much, but I heard that Glock was suing S&W. So, next time I got a chance, I looked at a new S&W pistol. Had it not said S&W on it, I'd have said, "Wow, somebody had their Glock refinished in light grey. Looks kinda nice." My guess is that S&W has downsized their creative tallent.

So, why doesn't BM sue too? Well, I don't know anything about the matter, but maybe BM has already settled the matter quietly and S&W now has a license from BM. Again, I have no knowlege of such a thing and am only suggesting it.

The other option is just that BM doesn't want to spend their money suing everyone who knocks off their stuff. Law suits cost a lot of money, even if you win. This is a small business and even if you win, you often loose a lot of friends.

It's hard to prove your case in a situation like this too. Unless the S&W is just an exact duplicate in every way, it'll be hard to establish legally that S&W really did rip off BM. The Spyderco hole is a different matter. That's a patent. It's a lot easier to establish patent infringment.

IMHO, don't buy the knife. Tell S&W you're not buying it because you think this sort of thing is unethical. Tell 'em that a company with a proud reputation like S&W should design their own creative products.

Chuck




[This message has been edited by Gollnick (edited 24 July 1999).]
 
Smith and Wesson knives are not made by Smith and Wesson, but by Taylor Cutlery. Taylor also makes a wide range of cheap knives under their own name, including "novelty knives" with KKK and Hitler themes.
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- JKM
www.chaicutlery.com
AKTI Member # SA00001
 
I'm not surprised to find out that Taylor Cutlery makes those POS KKK and nazi knives. They were the only people to be totally unprofessional to me at the blade show. I asked them if Darrel Ralph had anything to do with their new kneck knife because the blade looks exactly like a Krait blade, with the same shaped cut outs and everything. They were extremely evasive about this and more than a little unpleasant afterwards. Knowing they make those klan folders is enough to make me never buy anything from them. I vowed a long time ago to never buy anything from somebody with those on their table. Thanks for the info James.
 
This raises an interesting question:

Did Taylor want the S&W name and, therefore licence it from S&W, or did S&W want some knives for their product line and contract Taylor to produce them?

Inasmuchas I've seen the knives in S&W's catalog, I suspect the later. In this case, one must question S&W's choice of suppliers.

Also, one must ask who designed the knives? (Well, we all know it was Mel Pardue and Benchmade, but let's set that aside for the moment.) If Taylor did the designs, then did S&W approve them. Normally, a company that values its good name and image does not allow that name to be put on a product without having some say in the design. Again, since those knives are in S&W's catalogs and in their print ads, I have to assume that S&W approves of them and of their relationship with Taylor.

When H&K wanted a knive, they contracted with Benchmade for it. Perhaps S&W should have too.

Chuck
 
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Here is a pic of the Benchmade 3500


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and here is a pic of the S&W 1500

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-Dennis-




[This message has been edited by shootist16 (edited 25 July 1999).]
 
Hello one & all,

Well, this certainly is turning into an interesting (political) thread which Mercury has started.

Just the other day one of my local cutlery retailers tried pawning-off some S&W knives on me. To which, thank goodness, I said indignantly, "No thanks!" (if its not a Spyderco folder then don't even bother).

Speaking of Spyderco...

Mercury, as has already been pointed out on this thread, its a patented HOLE you're giggling about (had you thought of the idea yourself, rather then Sal Glesser, and patented it then you'd be giggling all the way to the bank and be "sittin' pretty" today).

I am, for what its worth, in FULL agreement with the likes of:

Gollnick, when it comes to boycotting S&W knives until they get it right (I, for my part, will even go so far as to extend said boycott of my own to their firearms as well).

Paul Davidson, in as much as my disgust of the KKK, and their pathetic (sympathizer) croonies, are concerned.

Shame on Taylor (READ "BOO-boo")!

My thanks goes to James Mattis for sharing with us the link between KKK paraphenalia and Taylor products.

Heaven forbid I should ever end up with a knife that yells, "Sieg Heil" or "Heil Hitler," or whats even worse, jumps out of my pocket to extend the "Hitler Gruss!"
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My two cents worth & then some,

Michael Cedric

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"You learn something new every day!"

 
Oh, that is blatant, that 1500! (Sorry, I have not, until now, seen the two side-by-side like that. I knew they were close, but now I can see that every line and every feature matches exactly!)

This time, they've gone to far! Unless they've licensed that from BM, that is downright unethical!

It's sad to see a company that made its name and reputation upholding law and order in the wild west, now turned to outright theft.

My understanding is that the safety mechanism on the BM 3500 is patented. I can't see in the picture if the S&W 1500 has a safety.

Chuck

[This message has been edited by Gollnick (edited 25 July 1999).]

[This message has been edited by Gollnick (edited 25 July 1999).]
 
The 1500 has no safety. The 1500 is not licensed from BM. BM does not have a patent on the 3500. Mel Pardue may have, but I am not sure. And if he does have a patent it may only be on the safety and not the design.

The bad part of this whole thing is that Taylor has the ability to come out with original designs. Why not make an auto version of his already sucessful SWAT?

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Best Regards,
Mike Turber
BladeForums Site Owner and Administrator
Do it! Do it right! Do it right NOW!
www.wowinc.com

 
The 1500 is probably S&W most blantant design ripoff but not their only one in my opinion, the S&W California auto bears a striking resemblance to an older Dalton model, and I couldn't find the picture but I think I remember that they have a new auto out now that borrows alot of it's styling from the BM Reflex.
As to why makers don't sue to stop this sort of thing- I could be wrong but from what I understand of patent laws you can patent a mechanical feature or register a logo/trademark but you can't really get a patent on the overall look or design of a product. Still you would think that a company with the reputation that S&W has would not stoop to this sort of thievery not to mention
put their name on a lower quality product. There are worse Auto knives out there than S&W's and S&W models are priced less but I did expect better from them and don't think their knives are a good vaule. I had a 1250 which I bought cheap last year off the Web, I was disapointed with it and kept it in the box until I decided to sell it a couple of weeks ago to a guy who said he already had one and liked it. Regardless of who actually makes the knives they are sold as S&W's. I won't be buying another one!
 
You can't really patent a design (a "look and feel"). There is a type of patent called a "design patent", but keep in mind that the word "design" has several meanings.

You can copyright a design, though. In fact, as soon as you publish a design, you automatically have a copyright on it.

Copyright infringment has to be rather blatant. I'm no lawer, and no expert in these matters, but if the SW 1500 isn't blatent enough to be an infringement on the BM3500, then I don't know what would be. The pictures that Mr. Shootist has shown us tell the story. If it weren't for the markings, you'd be hard-pressed to tell these two products apart. Again, I'm no expert, but I seem to recall that the criteria is something like "the average man on the street would readily mistake one for the other."

Chuck
 
Wow, I didn't expect such a fantastic reply to my post, thanks for noticing. Did you know that in 1985 Owens & Corning was allowed to copyright the color PINK, in accordance to the fact that the color had become such a mainstay of their fiberglass insulation. This occurred AFTER another company had also released similar looking insulation, and the ruling made it completely legal for Corning to collect back-royalties on profits supposedly caused by that color? The LOOK for the film "Batman Forever" was the grounds for a major lawsuit before the film was released, due to a supposed similarity between the city-scape backdrop and a popular artists line of paintings. I am a student filmmaker actually, and I have to make sure that EVERYTHING I put my hand to (written or celluloid) has my name all over it. My written style has been stolen more then a few times, and although it was NOT my own work directly that was pilfered, I was able to win the debate by way of likeness alone. If BM and/or Mel Pardue haven't gotten on the ball with this already, then they should start some sort of voluntary ban on S&M products. It wouldn't last long, I know that most any cutlery retailer would take a giant like Benchmade over S&W. But, then again, I could be wrong...

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Robert Joseph Ansbro
 
I do find it funny that S&W knocked off Dalton who has Knocked Off others before. Funny when one knock off, knocks off another knock off company and then gets mad about any knock offs of their own knock offs
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Boker USA has done the same bitching about Top Lock knock offs and then they have their Maxxam line. Funny..
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Best Regards,
Mike Turber
BladeForums Site Owner and Administrator
Do it! Do it right! Do it right NOW!
www.wowinc.com

 
FWIW, I've complianed about this knife in three other posts, to date. I'm glad to see someone finally got folks' attention, though.

I have a measure of respect for S&W current line because the SWATs are some darn solid folders at a good price (I know folks complain abot the thin locks, but my large and GF's 2 smalls both pass spine-whacks no sweat), and the fixed-blades are decent for the money, too. I don't know why they should tarnish a good line with a rip-off like this one, but I like the responses folks have shown. Harsh repercussions from the knife community may get them to change their tune.

Also, thanks Mr. Mattis for the Taylor Cutlery info. I'll re-evaluate this series in light of that.

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-Drew Gleason
Little Bear Knives
 
Let me just ask this about S&W (or
the company that makes the pieces for them, I will just call the knives S&W because it's oh-so-easy) and one of their other knives, a piece that I am
personally VERY fond of; The 1230. It's that small fellow of a knife, the automatic "POLICE" dubbed switchblade that has the wood insert / bottom half on the handle. That knife is really quite handsome, and the release switch seems more vintage and like large then the modern "Button" on most other automatic knives. The knife is so small that all pictures of the piece NEED to be quite close, and this is very advantageous because it gives the viewer a chance to truly observe the knife at a closer angle then with a larger knife. I think it looks very well made, but of course looks can be VERY deceiving (I would have never thought that anything by MicroTech would perform at all marginal, let alone to fail the whack test so many times with a number of people) What's the story on this little auto?

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Robert Joseph Ansbro
 
I could see where Bm would be upset over the SW 1500,but Sw other knives like the Swat series, and their other autos seem to me to be well made knives. I never hear complaints about the SW autos I have sold such as the SW 1250 or the SW1000. I am carrying the 1250 now which is a nice ,inexpensive utility knife with a decent blade. Like Mike Turber said ,others like R. Dalton have made copy knives of some other maker. If someone was blatenly copying knives I could see the outrage. But it looks like this is the only SW copy of another brand. Speaking of the KKK, I saw a KKK marked dagger at a local flea market.It was in a presentation box with a KKK button inside and a piece of paper describing the "purpose" of the Klan . I expected to see made in China on the knife,but there was onLY the marking Cherokee at the hilt of the blaDE. It didnt turn me on . Anyway to make a buck!
 
SMITH AND WESSON: (translation into english from Hilarious Laughter) I won't even own one of their guns, why would I buy their knives?


Joe
 
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