Whew. This thing is still going. If you beat a dead horse long enough, can you beat it into the ground so it’s finally buried?
Maybe I can help?
I guess I need to start with our “lawyer” poster. If he is, in fact, a lawyer, which I highly doubt, he missed some classes on attorney professionalism. I have dealt with many IP attorneys and have never seen such conduct.
His information is not complete. Maybe manipulative? Maybe selective?
Yes it is true that our first application was denied, quite common in patent and trademark applications. Of course the patent issue was discussed.
We went back to the examiners and showed them the multitude of folding knives that had hole shape (used for opening the knife) in that particular location on the folding knife blades, by many companies.
We showed them Gerber’s “bean” shaped hole, Frost’s “hawkeye”, SOG’s long oval, Spyderco’s round hole, etc. ALL were pertinent to the patent.
The Examiners agreed that there was a variety of shapes used for that function. They also agreed that, after testing, the round hole demonstrated that it was identifiable as a “Spyderco” for most knowlegable in the industry.
That’s why they granted us the trademark on the shape of our hole opener, which we do hold at this time.
We couldn’t get a trademark on a fixed blade because a number of companies were already using a hole in their blade for some function, such as Knives of Alaska.
I have chosen to put a small round hole in a particular location on our fixed blade knives to extend our identification. It is not protected, but it is not illegal. It is not in the same location as anoyone else's holes.
Bungwrench,
2 + 2 does not equal 12. Your conclusion that Spyderco had lost in court is not rational. Spyderco and Benchmade have never been in court, there was no winning or losing.
I must say that I was disappointed to see the delight and glee in your posts at possibly having found some “dirt” on Spyderco.
David, at Spyderco we always extend our best effort to conduct business in an honest, fair and proper manner. It is a credo of the company. If you dig, you can probably find mistakes, we are by no means perfect, but I doubt you will find a situation where Spyderco has intentionally been unethical.
Spyderco is a very transparent company. Why is that so hard to believe?
Hi ClintB,
Regarding the Emerson wave, my apologies, I wrongly assumed you had more history. “Hooks” have been around for 100+ years. There are patents on “hooks” to open folders that date back to the late 1800’s. I have seen more than one. Heck, I was “waving” knives in the 50’s, probably before Ernest Emerson was born.
Could we have ignored his patent, fought him over it, and “won”? Probably. It would have been “legal”, but it would not have been “honest, fair and proper” in our values.
Emerson knives did bother to get a patent, albeit narrow. They did bother to name it (more difficult that it might appear as most good names have been used). They promoted the “wave” and created a demand for it. That is a lot of work. We felt it fair to give them credit and pay a royalty. We charge a few points, pay a few points and everyone is happier. It’s called cooperation. All though I will admit that I have had little luck in “pushing” industry cooperation in the knife industry.
The “simple and plain truth” of the matter is that Spyderco and Benchmade reached an agreement. We did not drag it through courts for years. We did not spend millions of dollars in attorney and court fees. We felt the intelligent thing to do was to reach an agreement. Which we did.
Details of that agreement are private. If the agreement works, fine. If not, we’ll deal with that in the future.
As far as the other “hole openers” in the marketplace while our patent was still in force; a knife-maker and some clever attorney’s figured out that they could attack the word “hump” in our patent. They concluded that if they left the “hump” off of the hole opener, they could “loophole” the patent, and there were quite a few.
I will point out there were some companies that paid Spyderco royalties for the patent. Mr. Jim Wehrs was heading up Gerber at the time and he and Doug Hutchins (both are now Lone Wolf) chose to pay us royalties for the hole opener used on their Gerber models. Their integrity is very high. Benchmade paid Spyderco a royalty for both the patent and the trademark, which was a higher percentage. David Boye, also paid Spyderco royalties for the patent.
Boats, on giving credit, I would agree that giving credit for each invention of every item on an auto would not be practical. Too many. But in the knife industry, much of the innovation has been created in the past 30 years and we feel giving credit for those origins is interesting information. It is a courtesy to those innovators.
I hope that helps.
Thanx much for your patience kind understanding.
As far as Knives of Alaska and their hole openers, I have not seen them.
sal
)