Sledgehammer Update

mr8ball

mr8ball

Active member
Attention all. Mike Gulyassy has got his patent on his break cue. This means that all billiard suppliers and cue makers that have been selling and using a C grade phenolic or any other resilient material as a one piece ferial-tip unit used for breaking or jumping has to stop.

Grants to the person (s) having title to this patent the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling the invention through the United States of America This is what is in writing on the United States of America or importing the invention into the United States of America for the term set forth, subject to the payment of maintenance fees as provided by law.

I would like to be one of the first to congratulate Mike on this great achievement.
 
mr8ball said:
This means that all billiard suppliers and cue makers that have been selling and using a C grade phenolic or any other resilient material as a one piece ferial-tip unit used for breaking or jumping has to stop.
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I'd better go out and patent oxygen, that way you would all have to stop using it!!!!!!!

Are you actually being serious right now? Patents are backdated, and I assure you that people such as Fury who have been doing them just slightly shorter the Gulyassy have their ducks in a row as well.
 
mr8ball said:
Attention all. Mike Gulyassy has got his patent on his break cue. This means that all billiard suppliers and cue makers that have been selling and using a C grade phenolic or any other resilient material as a one piece ferial-tip unit used for breaking or jumping has to stop.

Grants to the person (s) having title to this patent the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling the invention through the United States of America This is what is in writing on the United States of America or importing the invention into the United States of America for the term set forth, subject to the payment of maintenance fees as provided by law.

I would like to be one of the first to congratulate Mike on this great achievement.
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As a guy in the rapid prototyping business (I do prototypes for engineering firms), a son of an engineer with almost 90 patents, and having my own name on a patent application or two myself..

I'd seriously like to read the application.. LOL I'm not sure how he got it approved, but I can't imagine that it would be valid in any real world scenario.. Other then maybe scaring off a couple guys "thinking" about getting into the phenolic tip game.

As the old saying goes, you can patent anything, defending it in court is another thing.

Congragulations on the achievement, but I'll hold out on the pats on the back to read the actual "wording" of the patent. There in lies it's strength.


DJ
 
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Was that English? I guess all that double talk would hold up in court but it was painful to read, including the typos and punctuation errors.

I know he was in battle with McDermott but said he isn't going to follow through because it would cost too much for legal fees. If this is true then it's awesome news..........for Mike but not McDermott.
 
mr8ball said:
Attention all. Mike Gulyassy has got his patent on his break cue. This means that all billiard suppliers and cue makers that have been selling and using a C grade phenolic or any other resilient material as a one piece ferial-tip unit used for breaking or jumping has to stop.

Grants to the person (s) having title to this patent the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling the invention through the United States of America This is what is in writing on the United States of America or importing the invention into the United States of America for the term set forth, subject to the payment of maintenance fees as provided by law.

I would like to be one of the first to congratulate Mike on this great achievement.
Click to expand...


I'd love to know what exactly he has dibs on, I mean is it just the tip, is it the cue, are there more components?? I really do wonder. But much like design theft although it's wrong and would be held up in court the fight is just to much money to risk with very little reward (not much money in cues).

Jim
 
If I am not mistaken, using a resilient material as part of a one piece ferrule-tip unit is an "idea".

Ideas cannot be patented, only designs. Which is why the rubber first patented for use with billiards tables was quickly copied, and the person with the original idea (Phelan?) did not make much money off it. Change the vulcanization process for the rubber slightly, and wah lah, a new patentable design is born.

Russ
 
1pRoscoe said:
I'd better go out and patent oxygen, that way you would all have to stop using it!!!!!!!

Are you actually being serious right now? Patents are backdated, and I assure you that people such as Fury who have been doing them just slightly shorter the Gulyassy have their ducks in a row as well.
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I am at the US Open right now and Mike has a booth right beside me. I have seen the patent and it is the real deal. He has shown it to everyone here. Mike from Omega Billiards was nice eneough to take his cues off the floor after he was shown it. I aplade him for showing such respect for Mike.

The pool world needs more of that.
 
I'm sorry to ask, but is that a patent for the US or for the whole world ? Makes a difference here IMHO as there are many cuemakers and cue producers outside the US.

Interesting news though...

EDIT: seems to be United States patent. Thought so, worldwide patent would be darn expensive. Well, you can still expect foreign jump-breaks as usually.
 
mr8ball said:
Attention all. Mike Gulyassy has got his patent on his break cue. This means that all billiard suppliers and cue makers that have been selling and using a C grade phenolic or any other resilient material as a one piece ferial-tip unit used for breaking or jumping has to stop.

Grants to the person (s) having title to this patent the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling the invention through the United States of America This is what is in writing on the United States of America or importing the invention into the United States of America for the term set forth, subject to the payment of maintenance fees as provided by law.

I would like to be one of the first to congratulate Mike on this great achievement.
Click to expand...

Madison Bob said the one-piece ferrule on my j/b was hemp. Is that a resilient material? I don't know, but breaks and jumps a damn sight better than my old Sledgehammer did. I guess I can always smoke it if it's deemed a patent violation.
I'm listed as a co-inventor (along with a dozen other programmers) on some work flow software (SmartStream), I've seem an awful lot of VERY similar products come out since and the company that owns the patent now has not seen any point in bringing anybody to court. I just don't think it is worth it unless it is a very tight concept being patented. Is he going to sue every little cue maker out there making a jump break, I think not.
 
10% change and somebody else can get a patent

Make a 10% change and someone else can get a patent too. Unless he managed a very broad patent it won't be hard to work around. In fact, "one piece" is all the loophole someone seeking one needs.

I worked in R&D for awhile and knew people with patents including one man with over eighty. None were rich and the man with over eighty made money on two.

As was mentioned earlier defending the patents can be a bear too. I met a man that designed and built an entire motorcycle engine from scratch. Somebody else changed it slightly, stole the design, and made all the cash entirely legally. Might not have been moral or ethical but the copycat is laughing all the way to the bank.

An SOB stole my unique design and is selling it today. All I can do is jackslap him if I bump into him.

Hu

catscradle said:
Madison Bob said the one-piece ferrule on my j/b was hemp. Is that a resilient material? I don't know, but breaks and jumps a damn sight better than my old Sledgehammer did. I guess I can always smoke it if it's deemed a patent violation.
I'm listed as a co-inventor (along with a dozen other programmers) on some work flow software (SmartStream), I've seem an awful lot of VERY similar products come out since and the company that owns the patent now has not seen any point in bringing anybody to court. I just don't think it is worth it unless it is a very tight concept being patented. Is he going to sue every little cue maker out there making a jump break, I think not.
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mr8ball said:
Attention all. Mike Gulyassy has got his patent on his break cue. This means that all billiard suppliers and cue makers that have been selling and using a C grade phenolic or any other resilient material as a one piece ferial-tip unit used for breaking or jumping has to stop.

Grants to the person (s) having title to this patent the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling the invention through the United States of America This is what is in writing on the United States of America or importing the invention into the United States of America for the term set forth, subject to the payment of maintenance fees as provided by law.

I would like to be one of the first to congratulate Mike on this great achievement.
Click to expand...

His patent is not new, so why call this an update?

BTW I hope he does patent the shaft used on the Sledgehammer, so that nobody copies them. I wouldn't want anybody who paid $300 for a cue to suffer through the same problems I had with two of them, eventually having to pay $70 more for a new "custom" joint pin and shaft.
 
Or you can just glue a phenolic tip on an existing ferrule like I do....I think the one piece ferrule tip combo is crap anyways....I replaced one on a customers cue three times that kept splitting on the side...:mad: and no I didn't have air pockets underneath...
________
 
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Gregg said:
His patent is not new, so why call this an update?

.
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Well I'm not sure when he finalized it or how long they take to get but he has had *Pending* on the butt for quite some time, I figured once filed it took some time and money to research it to make sure it's not already done and to make sure nobody else makes a claim to it.
As far as your shafts go for a while he outsourced them and had some issues with quality control.

Jim
 
mr8ball said:
Attention all. Mike Gulyassy has got his patent on his break cue. This means that all billiard suppliers and cue makers that have been selling and using a C grade phenolic or any other resilient material as a one piece ferial-tip unit used for breaking or jumping has to stop.
Click to expand...
No, it means his design and material cannot be copied as the same type apparatus for the same use. But fact is, who would want to? Geez, look at the drawings!!!
 
I'm impressed!

According to the abstract he just came up with the idea of putting a tip on a cue. Maybe someone can patent the wheel after all. A close read of the abstract says something along the lines of "replacing the wooden cue tip" Seems like that has been going on for awhile. Of course every once in awhile someone does get a patent due to someone at the patent office's inability to read. Owning the patent on putting anything over the wooden tip of a cue, now that would be a coup!

Hu



TellsItLikeItIs said:
No, it means his design and material cannot be copied as the same type apparatus for the same use. But fact is, who would want to? Geez, look at the drawings!!!
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Here is the link to the full text of the patent:

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-adv.htm&r=1&p=1&f=G&l=50&d=PTXT&S1=7097570.PN.&OS=pn/7097570&RS=PN/7097570

There are images here too (click the "images" button), but I am having trouble getting them to load on my PC. I believe the design drawings are in the images.

I know the company I work for has many patents and they have been unsuccessfully challenged at all levels of litigation. Of course this patent has earned the company millions in licensing and royalties. I get the feeling that once a patent has been issued, it is very difficult to challenge and have the patent award overturned. Like someone said earlier, the cost would far outweigh the benefit of challenging something like this. And on the flip side, I would think that it would be quite easy to defend infringement, but in reality, the cost would probably outweigh the benefit for this as well.

Happy Reading.
Craig

Edit: The link is just a different format of the link Eric posted.
 
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IMHO, the patent is a little late on a couple of levels.

The first is that the IPT has already banned the use of such a tip in their events, so, assuming that the IPT continues and grows, most players will probably not be using a phenolic tip.

Secondly, as I see it anyway, the second generation Sledgehammer cues had so many issues of warpage, loose joint pins as described earlier and so many other cues have been introduced which use different technology to achieve the same effect, that the demand for the Sledgehammer in my area is almost non-existent. If they were to take the quality of the product back to what it was in the beginning, that might change.
 
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