Smart Parts will be closed at the end of the month !!

[cockerpunk]

actually, that loan that robbo is talking about is probably for the HUGE machining facility they build about 3 years ago. they machined everything in house from my understanding, only boards and injection molding were done overseas.

unfortunately or fortunately, SP leaned what happens when you invest in a basically state of the art machining facility and you plan to pay it off with 175 dollar vibes and Sp1s that might make you 25 bucks a pop.

12 million dollars at 25 bucks a pop is a lot of vibes ...

then the while market went to ****, and now your selling half or maybe even less vibes ...

[leloup]

Then they film fake Amish people for the commercial and add some fine print about the filming being a "mockup".

It is easy to tell it is a mock up...seeing that Amish don't like having pictures taken of them. it is against their religion. Even little girls dolls don't have faces. Kind of creepy.

[Skeeter]

Even little girls dolls don't have faces. Kind of creepy.

Hmmm... I thought it was genetic!

[bound for glory]

i'm not a fan of smart parts. and its great that what goes around comes around. that being said, alot of people who arn't ******** are losing there jobs. at christmas. in a country where the people in charge don't care if theres jobs or not. people who are losing there jobs because these jerkoff brothers could'nt keep there jerkoff company afloat, i won't make merry over that. i, as a father, feel sorry for the familys this will hurt.

[going_home]

2004 Smart Parts vs WDP

The BIG issue is that their electronic trigger mechanism WAS NEVER valid!!! They (the Gardner brothers) DO have other patents, that are enforceable, for the spool-valve systems. The E-Trigger patents were proven invalid, in a Federal Circuit Court of Wisconsin (2003, IIRC).

The reason EVERYONE with a clue should hate SP? They fundamentally changed the industry, by destroying the culture of cooperation and "good sportsmanship" between manufacturers!!! Now, every company in the industry is very "protectionist", and not at all interested in helping eachother out. Before SP's legal BS, most, if not all, of the companies in the industry would willingly share information, technology, concepts, etc... Now, that feeling of teamwork, between different manufacturers, companies, teams, stores, etc,. has been destroyed. I blame SP for destroying that wonderful component of the game.

No other entity (or combination of entities) has had such a negative impact on this industry, in the 22 years of my involvement in the sport!

EDIT: Smart Parts got their butts kicked in OREGON, not Wisconsin (my mistake)

Search on "Smart".
http://patentlaw.typepad.com/patent/...s_2004/page/2/

That was 2004 Smart Parts vs WDP

http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2004/08/paintball_paten.html

Smart Parts v. WDP (D. Oregon 2004)




In a patent infringement suit over electropneumatic paintball guns, an inventorship controversy arose. Smart Parts contends it is the sole owner of U.S. Patent No. 6,474,326. Dr. Edward Hensel, a former investor, claims to be a co-inventor. Hensel, now acting on behalf of WDP, provided evidence that he designed various elements of the patented invention - namely the electrical timing circuit and bolt action control. In addition, Hensel created a working model in his home. The court agreed that Hensel should be at least a co-inventor and granted summary judgment to WDP on the issue of inventorship.

WDP is gone so now who owns what ?

[Frizzle Fry]

WDP is gone so now who owns what ?

Angel Paintball Sports aka APS.

[TheePsycho]

WDP is not gone. They just changed their name to APS Angel Paintball Sports.

[Pump Scout]

Also, the WDP-v-Smart Parts follies did indeed spill into Wisconsin. Can't cite a case number or date, but it did happen here. What doesn't get aired in public too much is that it was WDP bringing a case against Smart Parts. The dirty laundry part of this is that in order to establish the case of Smart Parts markers being sold in Wisconsin, WDP sent people in to several WI stores to order markers. Once those markers were ordered (and, from conversations with the store owners, they were RELUCTANTLY ordered, after trying to steer the "customer" to a better/cheaper/non-SP product but under insistance that they wanted the whatever-it-was), then those STORES were made part of the legal mess. Each one had to come to terms legally, which meant retaining an attorney, shutting down to attend court, and losing out on thousands of dollars in legal costs because two companies were in a slugging match.

SP certainly brought lawsuits against plenty of people. WDP wasn't one of them. That game was the other way around.

[PaintballEngineer]

Tom Kay patents HPA.

Sues GI Milsim.

Game over?

There goes our moral high ground

[going_home]

There goes our moral high ground

Thats why it wont happen.

Character is not a gift, its a victory.

[Ninjeff]

Maybe time to re-release rental mags....perhaps a "demo kit" that comes with the equipment you need to clean a mag......a bucket to put the water in....lol.

Late to the party here, and i didnt read the rest of the thread (i will though i swear!)

But i ahve to say, being able to get a good fleet of rental mags would be the greatest thing ever. My field uses Piranna rentals and, to be frank, i hate the damned things. Out of a fleet of 150+ we can usually only manage around 110 working guns at any one time. The list of problems is long and varied, but it got so bad at the end of the season that we would wind up with one employee JUST fixing guns. All day. JUST to keep the players on the field. GroovyChicken and i had to spend TWO whole weekends just working on guns just to replenish the stock back to 100%. In the end, it only took 2 weeks before we were right back to swapping out guns for at least ONE person in every group more than a few times a day. We've ordered new guns and found them to actually be worse quality wise than the older ones. To top it off the months of October and November turned out to be our busiest months in the history of the field (after 17 years!) clocking in at over 1100 people/ month (only open saturday/sunday). Thats a REALLY big number for a field in central Illinois Since we pride ourselves on customer satisfaction it really got myself and the other employees down (and angry) having guns go down on the field and customers not egtting to play a full round until we had them swapped out. When you take a group out with two spare guns in a backpack, and come back with three broken ones it gets irritating. The owner and i have spoken at length about what to do about the issue and have yet to come up with a working solution.

All that being said, We have always batted the idea around how great it would be to be able to get a full fleet of rental classic 'Mags. So, yea, i cannot stress enough how awesome it would be to actually be able to do this. Heck, we are right here in Illinois, I'll even drive up personally and pick them up!

[CatoRockwell]

Late to the party here, and i didnt read the rest of the thread (i will though i swear!)

But i ahve to say, being able to get a good fleet of rental mags would be the greatest thing ever. My field uses Piranna rentals and, to be frank, i hate the damned things. Out of a fleet of 150+ we can usually only manage around 110 working guns at any one time. The list of problems is long and varied, but it got so bad at the end of the season that we would wind up with one employee JUST fixing guns. All day. JUST to keep the players on the field. GroovyChicken and i had to spend TWO whole weekends just working on guns just to replenish the stock back to 100%. In the end, it only took 2 weeks before we were right back to swapping out guns for at least ONE person in every group more than a few times a day. We've ordered new guns and found them to actually be worse quality wise than the older ones. To top it off the months of October and November turned out to be our busiest months in the history of the field (after 17 years!) clocking in at over 1100 people/ month (only open saturday/sunday). Thats a REALLY big number for a field in central Illinois Since we pride ourselves on customer satisfaction it really got myself and the other employees down (and angry) having guns go down on the field and customers not egtting to play a full round until we had them swapped out. When you take a group out with two spare guns in a backpack, and come back with three broken ones it gets irritating. The owner and i have spoken at length about what to do about the issue and have yet to come up with a working solution.

All that being said, We have always batted the idea around how great it would be to be able to get a full fleet of rental classic 'Mags. So, yea, i cannot stress enough how awesome it would be to actually be able to do this. Heck, we are right here in Illinois, I'll even drive up personally and pick them up!

if agd did this that would be amazing a local store that I've been working with uses those crappy pirahnas too as rentals. Same complaints when I am renting equipment for a work party we always have a few guns go down, but not my mags. This way we could convert people to mags by the droves instead of 1 or 2 loaners at a time like I have been doing

[Skeeter]

Also, the WDP-v-Smart Parts follies did indeed spill into Wisconsin. Can't cite a case number or date, but it did happen here. What doesn't get aired in public too much is that it was WDP bringing a case against Smart Parts.

Thank you for confirming the Wisconsin link. I didn't have any luck with google, while looking for the reference. I would like to know why WI was chosen as the state for the trial? Is WI known for strict patent enforcement standards?

The dirty laundry part of this is that in order to establish the case of Smart Parts markers being sold in Wisconsin, WDP sent people in to several WI stores to order markers. Once those markers were ordered (and, from conversations with the store owners, they were RELUCTANTLY ordered, after trying to steer the "customer" to a better/cheaper/non-SP product but under insistance that they wanted the whatever-it-was), then those STORES were made part of the legal mess. Each one had to come to terms legally, which meant retaining an attorney, shutting down to attend court, and losing out on thousands of dollars in legal costs because two companies were in a slugging match.

Yes... It WAS an ugly point in time, for this industry. It is hard to imagine having a difficult time finding a SP marker at some location in the state, just to establish "proof of sale". Ions and Shockers were ALL over the market, back in 2003 & 2004. If one store did not stock them on hand, then another one surely would have... Just drive down the road a bit and find a willing SP vendor. How many stores were involved?

SP certainly brought lawsuits against plenty of people. WDP wasn't one of them. That game was the other way around.

The important lesson for all of this legal BS, is that the SP patent was found to be unenforceable, as a whole. When this was established, it ENDED the SP "stranglehold" on the industry, and opened up the platform of e-triggers for the entire industry to utilize. It was a MAJOR blow to SP, and their continued attempts to control the industry.

It is very unfortunate that some small stores were drug into this mess as innocent bystanders; however, the industry has benefited as a whole, due to WDP's legal actions. I sincerely hope that the stores that suffered through that legal cat-fight, have survived and prospered. I do know that the entire sport is better off now, than it would be, if SP still had (invalid) control of any & all e-trigger systems.

[Ando]

If I remember correctly those rental mags were twice the price of other rental guns that fields could purchase and the fields would def have to switch over to HP unless they op to purchase expansion chambers but even with the expansion chambers, liquid would still get to the valve.

In the long run tho a mag would have saved those owners a ton of time and money. If I ever get a wild hair and the money, I def would open a field strictly using mags.

[Reiner]

If I remember correctly those rental mags were twice the price of other rental guns that fields could purchase and the fields would def have to switch over to HP unless they op to purchase expansion chambers but even with the expansion chambers, liquid would still get to the valve.

In the long run tho a mag would have saved those owners a ton of time and money. If I ever get a wild hair and the money, I def would open a field strictly using mags.

I'd pay twice as much foa decent long-term rental.