Smart Parts Patent Will Destroy Paintball! - Read!

[joker4hire]

Wow.. crazy stuff... but other than bitc... uhh.. complaining about it.. is there anything else we can really do?...

[Vampyr]

Plant evidence that they were selling the boards to Iraq and N Korea and see if we can get them sent to Guantanamo Bay? There seems to be a witch hunt going on yet in this country, just got to get the natives with their pitchforks and torches to march that way.

(Joking... Unless there are any CIA ops around...)

[hAppy]

hmm
im a failure in school, and a dumass, please tell me
from what i thought i "knew"

i always thought that you can only patent something you invented... from what i know, SP didnt invent an on/off switch

[Ov3rmind]

Originally posted by No sKiLLz

We've had differences in the past, but I have to agree...

Yeah, this unites most of us simply for the fact that all of our favorite guns could be in danger of extinction.

Which makes me think, what does Espo think?

[breg]

This is really getting to me. How can a company who wants to make the paintball world a bigger place do something like this?

AGD keeps saying that this is no laughing matter. I REALLY have to agree with him. Just think of what this could do to you and your marker. Or what this could do to your local fields, pro shops, on line stores, and companies. That $75 royality could really put the hurt on a lot of folks.

[XVFrontplayer]

lets write them angry letters. http://www.smartparts.com/spcontact.htm

wouldnt it be crazy if b/c all of this SP went the way of the dinosar and noobs of tommaro would see freak kits and impulses and shoeboxes and be all like "whats a smart parts" and we will roll our eyes and sit them down and tell them of the story....think about it....haha.

[Nick O time]

i don't know much about this sort of thing, but wouldn't this be a monopoly because it is preventing anyone to make new things and such. i heard it was hard for people to press charges against Microsoft, becuase they kept on making newer and better things, so if SP failed to do so it would be easier to file a suit for monopoly or something.

remember i am not to big on this sort of thing, but that is some of the stuff i remember learning about in the economics part of our history class.

[ramennoodles]

ATTENTION ALL AO'ers DUR members or concerned paintballers, this is what i plan on sending to the smart parts company i would like it if you would read the whole thing then post a reply or pm me. thank you.

MY RESPONSE

scrath that, it seams as though it has been removed, i do not mind this is not my server space, but to whoever removed it, could you please enlighten me as to the reason it was removed?

[Nastyimp13]

First off, I wanna say i love smart parts guns and parts. i have never had any problems with them. I dont not agree with the patent. But it does make sense if they are a company in competion with other companies.

LONG LIFE SMART PARTS!

[Ov3rmind]

Originally posted by Nastyimp13
First off, I wanna say i love smart parts guns and parts. i have never had any problems with them. I dont not agree with the patent. But it does make sense if they are a company in competion with other companies.

LONG LIFE SMART PARTS!

Yeah, I'm all for companies increasing profits, but when it hurts the sport as much as this might, that's when I think they have crossed the line. They have blatantly showed they could care less for paintball, it's all about the cold hard cash. How could you support that?

[spacedtedybear]

I think the all the major PB marker companies should ban together, pool their collective resources and information on electric operated paintball markers that predates the SP patent. Almost every PB marker company, whether big or small, had contributed something to revolutionized PB. The Webmasters link to DOC's thread is a clear example.

[Doc Nickel]

Okay, first, we only know of this $75 fee as a rumor. But, coming from a company that sold $100 Shocker circuit boards and $200 FA circuit boards where the only difference was a single miniature switch, I doubt it's off by much, if at all.

The problem is, if it is indeed a major license fee- even half a million is serious coin even for larger companies like AGD and W'Orr Games- plus a per-unit royalty, that's a great big hit.

Look at the Advent. The gun's an obvious rough prototype, and OTB is, while an established company, a very small established company.

Do you think the Advent will get released if OTB has to fork out $1,015,000 just in licensing and royalties for the first run of 200 guns? Which, of course, doesn't even count the actual production costs, material costs and what they have invested in R&D.

Look at the ICE Epic. The inventor of that is trying to do it himself, or in a low-cost, low-volume way. Movin' right along, isn't he? Ever seen one on the field?

Now think of what would have happened if he'd had to pay a million bucks just for the rights to produce it, before he'd ever made a single production unit.

Look at Thorpydo in the Workshop forum. Made his own gun, sounds like he's thinking of trying to produce it. Any bets that he doesn't have around $1,000,000 to pay SP for the privlege of producing more?

Basically we'd say goodbye to any new designs from anyone but maybe Kingman, and of course SP themselves.

Doc.

[Nastyimp13]

yeah i guess they dont care about paintball very much. But as for a business move, they are genius. If all the companies ban together it still wont do much.

[Ov3rmind]

Yeah, and the worst part is this comes at a time when some companies are coming out with some really nice looking new guns (Advent, Isis, Alien, DYE Matrix, etc.).

[Nastyimp13]

Yeah but i dont know about the advent, i dont like the looks of that gun very much.