patent question...

[AkumA]

its mostly on the SP deal. yes yes, i know people are getting tired of people *****ing, but i for one am not...

question...what if AGD made electro frames? i got the idea from http://www.automags.org/forums/showthread.php?threadid=130388, well actually that kid who said it pretty much had the idea. but, if eclipse can make an eframe (not technicly a electro gun), why can't AGD? im sure a LOT of mag owners will jump on this opportunity. wouldn't making an electro frame for the mag fly under the patent laws?

[OysterBoy]

I too have wondered this.

Bump.

[funkykarl]

i suppose it could work. AGD could make some frames for those of us that still want them and sell them separate from the rest of the gun, while focusing on the mech market. the only problem is that they'd have to try and fit the battery in the gripframe. i think selling a battery pack and a frame, plus an on/off most likely would cost more than it's worth.

[dmocratic]

A lot depends on how the claims in the SP patent are written. Not having seen them, I don't know, but they could be broad enough to cover an electro frame.

But if not, and if this was done, the person who assembeld the e-frame to some other parts to make a marker would be violating SP's patent. Now, that doesn't matter to recballers, but it would matter to the pro tourney teams. SP would only have to slap a few of them with lawsuits to stop it from happening. So you wouldn't see any of these
markers in high-profile tourney play, which is a minus from a marketing perspective.

There's a damn good reason for the patent system, and people benefit a lot more from it being the way it is (from things like new medicines, new plastics, new electronics, and almost every other innovation you know of) than they suffer because they have more limited choice in electro PB markers. Quit whining that you can't get other people's ideas for free. And if it wasn't a novel enough idea, why didn't any of you publish the idea before SP filed ? Merely publishing the idea (like by posting it to USENET) early enough would have been enough to make the patent invalid. And BTW, lots of truly great inventions are obvious _after_ someone tells you about them.

[fallout11]

Electronic triggered retrofits for airguns (paintball guns) are already covered under a different patent, and it's not SP's.

http://airsoldier.com/~haveblue/tech/patents/US005413083.pdf
This patent predates SP's patent by several years.

Incidentally, Brass Eagles electronic "Rainmaker" gun also predates Smart Part's Shocker.
Hmm......guess SP won't mess with BE.