Smart Parts files for chapter 7 bankruptcy

[Ando]

April 2016 is the year of the paintball!!!!

The year the patent will die and everything will get back to "normal" so to speak.
Who ever takes it is going to pay way too much and make a complete loss from the royalties. There's not enough time left on it I would say.

[madmatt151]

I have been away from AO for some time and am just getting back to reading the forums again. While I am an old schooler and remember the days of the early Smart parts and the cool splash parts for my Mag, I don't see what will change if the patents expire. All I see now in the industry and on the fields are TONS of electros. What did Smart parts do to slow that down??? I see a dozen or so manufacturers making electronic guns and more coming everyday. What will change by them going bankrupt (which we all know does not mean they are going away)

[cockerpunk]

i think the damage is done. when the patent expires there isn't going to be a huge flurry of innovation and new guns. sure, some companies might be a hefty profit boost and might pass that on as better RnD or cheaper guns, but the damage the patents did has been done.

[halB]

Settled out of court - but with the approval of the court. the WDP-Smart Parts-Dye case was settled between the parties but it is a court approved settlement that VALIDATES and acknowledges the supremacy of the SP patents.

Regardless of how or why the agreement went down the way it did, SP got what they were looking for: a court document that states that their competitors acknowledged that their patents cover their products and that they are obligated to license in order to build.

This in fact makes the patents very strong - not weaker as some of you are implying.

What I am saying is that because it was settled out of court, we do not know on what issues it was settled, and therefore the law of the case and res judicata do not apply. Therefore, there is no precedent suggesting the patents are valid. The courts have not ruled on this.

edit: And supremacy of the patents? I wouldn't throw around legal terms incorrectly.

[factoid]

April 2016 is the year of the paintball!!!!

The year the patent will die and everything will get back to "normal" so to speak.
Who ever takes it is going to pay way too much and make a complete loss from the royalties. There's not enough time left on it I would say.

Is anyone actually paying them royalties? I have been absent from paintball for a long time and in catching up with the happenings I've read quite a bit about Smart Parts and their patent lawsuits, but there's a big lack of discussion happening between around 2003/4 and 2010. Seems that in 2001 Smart Parts was awarded their "electro" patent which was filed in Jan 1996 which makes the expiration 2016 as you say.

Seems like they started making revisions to get it broaded for the next couple of years and then started suing people for royalties and license fees in 2003/4.

After that the only thing I read is that they lost a couple of lawsuits trying to shut down other electro manufacturers.

So do people actually pay SP for every electro sold? Back in 2003 the speculation was that they wanted a million dolllar up-front and 75 bucks per marker. I can't imagine they actually got that, but clearly it was enough to scare some of the competition out of the market.

A quick glance shows me that smart parts, planet eclipse, spyder and Angel all make elctros, so clearly they didn't succeed in cornering the market...but the question is do those others all have to pay licensing fees. Anyone know the answer to that?

[rabidchihauhau]

What I am saying is that because it was settled out of court, we do not know on what issues it was settled, and therefore the law of the case and res judicata do not apply. Therefore, there is no precedent suggesting the patents are valid. The courts have not ruled on this.

edit: And supremacy of the patents? I wouldn't throw around legal terms incorrectly.

HalB - I was writing for a paintball forum where I've written TONS (far too much) about Patent law and various other issues relating to intellectual property. If this had been a law school forum, I'd have used the proper word(s) and definition based on Blacks.

The settlement in question was devised for the court's approval and was vetted by the judge in the case.

One of the terms in the agreement (two in fact if I remember correctly) expressly acknowledged the validity of the SP patents in terms of the art in question; various parties may still be able to litigate - but it's going to be pretty hard for them to over come their own sworn testimony: they helped to craft the agreement.

[Skeeter]

I have been away from AO for some time and am just getting back to reading the forums again. While I am an old schooler and remember the days of the early Smart parts and the cool splash parts for my Mag, I don't see what will change if the patents expire. All I see now in the industry and on the fields are TONS of electros. What did Smart parts do to slow that down??? I see a dozen or so manufacturers making electronic guns and more coming everyday. What will change by them going bankrupt (which we all know does not mean they are going away)

I'll just jump into the shark tank for a few lines of text (I missed the entire 2nd page of posts, so this may have been discussed already).

SP did NOT slow the industry down, but it DID cost everyone with an electronic marker (and some without) a small fortune to play the game... From FEES, to lawyers, to broken or destroyed companies, to harming GOOD people (Jerry Dobbins), SP has hurt the sport of paintball more than most people will EVER know. SP and their "business" practices CHANGED the sport for the worst... Even with interpersonal relationships... Just ask Tom and Bud, how the industry changed, due to SP...

When the IP (patents) become "public" in a few years, then anyone and everyone who has a FRESH idea on how to build a paintball marker, will have a level playing field to enter onto. There are a few VERY innovative ideas that have been "almost" ready for prime time, from as far back as 1999 or 2000 (anyone curious about the Phantom Revolution?). There are still existing patents that won't expire for a while, so no everybody can just build another M-98 or E99, but there are LOTS of smart (yes, the inuendo makes me smile) people in this industry, and the death of SP (and the expiration of their patents) is a GREAT thing for the sport.

RIP (Rest In Purgatory), SP...

[SOUP]

^ well said. Hopefully when the patents expire we will see the change in the industry.

On a side note, Did Smartparts sue deadlywind or try to at least? I remember DW had a marker in the makings and smartparts shut them down. Can anyone confirm?

there was a video on youtube with someone shooting the DW marker... but I cannot find it.

[druid]

If it wasn't done by SP, Bob Long, Budd Orr or any one of those guys would have picked up that ball and run with it too...

Kee and NPS has been no better, nor DXS/Halo....

so while you are all thumbing your noses at SP...start sharing the hate to the ones who do it TODAY....

[going_home]

Aedes Is Dead

^ well said. Hopefully when the patents expire we will see the change in the industry.

On a side note, Did Smartparts sue deadlywind or try to at least? I remember DW had a marker in the makings and smartparts shut them down. Can anyone confirm?

there was a video on youtube with someone shooting the DW marker... but I cannot find it.

http://www.pbnation.com/showthread.php?t=1724246&page=52

10-29-2006, 04:13 AM

Deadlywind is not your typical run-of-the-mill companies. I am a tinkerer. Most of the time I post about the things that I am tinkering with, either for input or to contribute to the common knowledge for others. If what I work on shows promise of good results, then it has the possibility of becoming one of our products. Some things get re-broadcast and hyped up out of proportion with the expectation of it becoming a full product.
There are always reasons beyond my control why some things which were highly expected to make production or continue production, didn't. I don't air dirty laundry.

A solution is to go the way of the "big boys" and develop in secrete and keep everything out of public until its 100% ready to go, but then people get mad that they were kept in the dark.

Yes, the Aedes is based on an MQ valve. The recent "issues" surrounding the MQ is one of the main holdups with the Aedes progressing. I nor Deadlywind have any associations with PBX or Mel. I will not comment on any rumors or about any of the IP "issues", etc surrounding the MQ valve.

So, forget about the Aedes for now. It does not exist.... until the day it does. Someday maybe everyone can go crazy about it again-- but with it in their hands this time instead of just reading about it.

Colin

[SOUP]

Yep... I was about to fix my post about the deadlywinds thing. important stuff is in the boldWe do still have plans tho for a marker some day!


Thanks-

Colin

[halB]

If it wasn't done by SP, Bob Long, Budd Orr or any one of those guys would have picked up that ball and run with it too...

Kee and NPS has been no better, nor DXS/Halo....

so while you are all thumbing your noses at SP...start sharing the hate to the ones who do it TODAY....

Budd Orr may have eventually sold out, but he was one of the first generation of paintball product producers. I doubt any of those guys would have done what SP did. Bob Long came along later, but he always seemed more interested in making the sport look better than in shutting down companies. I doubt he would have acted like SP either.

[cockerpunk]

If it wasn't done by SP, Bob Long, Budd Orr or any one of those guys would have picked up that ball and run with it too...

Kee and NPS has been no better, nor DXS/Halo....

so while you are all thumbing your noses at SP...start sharing the hate to the ones who do it TODAY....

i don't buy that for a second. having met and talked with the gardner borthers, they are the poeple who do this kind of stuff. everything about what happened made perfect sense after speaking with them in person.

sure, patents would have come into the paintball world, but not in the same way, and not with the same power and application. the hisotry of paintball has peremenently been effected by the massive insecurity of the gardner brothers.

[skipdogg]

Interesting news article talking about new funding for the US patent office..

http://www.jsonline.com/business/100407419.html

[going_home]

Interesting news article talking about new funding for the US patent office..

http://www.jsonline.com/business/100407419.html

Good ole "GWB" never ever saw a spending bill that he wouldnt sign.
"O" is walking right in his footsteps only faster.

Where is all this money going to come from, thats what I want to know.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, the US economy is treading water now,
but make no mistake, it will soon sink.
And then the NWO people can follow their long held plans and change the currency.