I believe that more manufacturers and small businesses should at least attempt to legally cover themselves a little better by using our laws more effectively, especially patents, trademarks and copyrights. I know it's hard for small business but at times I think there is enough money at stake to make the investment.
I fully agree. Most of us don't factor in the cost of patents and trademark registrations when we start out. Sadly the other part of it is having enough money to defend your patent or trademark when it comes up.
Joe Porper has often expressed regrets that he didn't patent his injected foam core case. I don't have an opinion as to whether the design was even subject to patent, but to this day Joe feels that he really messed up by not covering himself better.
I agree with this 100% - if anything was patentable as a bonafide improvement then it is the injection molded foam core case.
You may however be interested to know that the first company that was contacted to copy Porper's case had no idea how to do it. That company was making only box cases at the time and they built a square box and used cardboard tubes inside of it to emulate the Porper case. Unfortunately for them they built the box using staples so it fell apart rather quickly. Unfortunately for Porper it didn't take long for them to figure out how to make the foam core interiors.
Concerning e-bay, I was selling cues and magic items for Joe some years ago on e-bay, and at the time a lot of sellers were selling cases that weren't Creative Inventions but they used the name "Porper' - especially in selling a copy of his cue pads and his big 12X24 rolling case. I asked Joe if he wanted me to do something about it. He said yes and I contacted the sellers with a polite letter asking them to not use his name in their ads. Each one readily agreed and I think they were a little surprised to be called out on it.
I did the same with Instroke with some success.
Even with patents, copyrights, and trademarks it's very difficult and expensive for manufactures to go after these offshore companies, but the sellers are easier to go after.
I fully agree. The thing is that the offshore companies have no legal responsibility to NOT make something that is not protected in their country. It's the people who import into the USA who are breaking the law if they import copies. But the law is very tricky here and these unscrupulous companies exploit every trick they can to skirt it.
John, I don't know if you tried to copyright your designs on the Instroke, but I do think your cases were unique and novel. They were copied mercilessly too.
I found that I couldn't copyright an ornamental design on a utilitarian product. If something has a useful function as in a case or a T-shirt then it cannot be copyrighted. So that leaves design patents which are very strict and allow for subtle changes to effectively destroy a claim of infringement.
I had some success as you did, by asking people to refrain from using my trademark in comparative ways. I was also somewhat successful in getting people to not use my copyrighted descriptions verbatim. Overall though it did nothing to stem the tide of knockoffs.
By the way, these Meucci's (and others) decal design copies were around long before Carl started selling them. I probably saw the first Gambler and Rose cue copies 6 or 7 years ago.
Chris
They have been around longer than that. In the late 80's and early 90's the only cues on the market from Asia were mostly Meucci and McDermott knockoffs.
The funny thing about Carl's Cues is that he even has a knockoff of a Fury design on sale.
As for the whole design theft thing. I am against it but ambivalent about it as well.
Just last week I was at the ICCS and was fortunate to meet Dennis Glenn, of the famous Glenn collection in Texas.
He brought many fine old cases from the past.
I found out that Ernie Gutierrez of Gina did the first Fellini style case BEFORE Fellini. Fellini's version was larger but essentially was an exact copy of Gina's case.
And Harvey Martin was doing folded leather end cases with slip on caps before Gina.
So all of these cases are derivatives of each other in some way or another.
I have a bombshell that no one will believe about cases. I have to verify it first but if true it will blow away a lot of people assumptions about "quality" and "made in".
Anyway, I digress.
