Smart Parts does it again...

[obsolete898]

Thanks for the corrections guys.:)

[cledford]

The NPPL/PSP angle (or the plot thickens...)

Great post, thanks!

It will be interesting to see how the ICD case pans out also. I *think* the bushy is a single solenoid gun like the angel. Someone correctly pointed out earlier that the Shocker used 2 noids. The only other marker that does (that I know of) is the AKA Excalibur. They might be a very potential (and more vulnerable) victim as well.

I did hear that there could be a link between the PSP and NPPL in-fighting for control of professional paintball that may have prompted the WDP suit. Smart Parts is supporting the PSP who have hijacked the NPPL URL and are causing a ruckus. WDP supports the NPPL as they are looking to elevate the playing conditions here to equal those in the European (their neck of the woods) Millennium series. Talk includes a new seven man format (already used in Millennium) required grass fields, professional refs who will fly to each event and a host of other items to "clean up" a lot of the old problems with high level tournaments. The new NPPL is (in essence) accusing the PSP of raping the cash from PSP tourneys and not reinvesting it which drives down the professionalism and quality of the events. I believe there is some truth to this after regularly reading FaceFull and 1) hearing about how well run the European tournaments are, and 2) reading the reviews of 2002s PSP tournaments which for the most part were fiascos. It's amazing how well run things are in Europe (I hate to admit it actually) compared to here in the US. NPPL actually alleges (and I would guess correctly) that European players (for the most part) don't even want to come over here because things are so poorly run.

Anyhow, back to the point there may be some link based on the who's taking sides with who in the NPPL/PSP war and these law suits. I'm not sure how this may or may not have impacted the ICD suit. Maybe that was just a test case by SP since they decided ICD had the least capital (being one of the smallest manufacturers) for legal defense and to build a precedent allowing future suits (like the WDP) to progress easier.

For verification of who's on which side in the PSP/NPPL fight check out www.nppl.info (actual NPPL site with WDP statement of support) and www.nppl.com (for some reason this site won't come up for me right now -but earlier today it did with SP listed as one of the PSP major sponsors and had PSP info all over the site...) which shows Smart Parts as one of top 4 supporters of the series.

-Calvin

[cledford]

PSP www.nppl.com site is back up.

-Calvin

[cledford]

Interesting Post from PB City thread...

According to someone over there:

BE sued Odyssey before they made an even remote splash in the market.
They're not suing becuase of a disasterous loss in market share. They're suing to remove a competitor. They have plenty of money to throw around, and Odyssey does not. If they can tie enough of their money up in the courts, they win, even if they end up "losing."

Smart parts is similar. They've patented quite a few things that had prior art, and in some cases prior patents (WDP has done this as well, along with quite a few other paintball companies). Part of SP's reasoning with the ICD lawsuit was that they were the weaker company both in volume and in management (Jerry had fallen ill and his daughter was in charge).

The lawsuit against WDP (which I had heard nothing of until now) is merely a progression of this. Smart Parts and WDP have no love lost between them. This supposed lawsuit is merely a progression of that. Smart parts throwing money into the fray to see how they can affect sales of a competitor. I doubt they'll win, what with the way ICD handled them. But it will distract WDP's sales in the US. The timing of action against WDP might also be considered a tactic with the release of a new Smart Parts marker sometime in the near future. Of course, that could just be coincidence.

[Kevmaster]

Originally posted by flatacid
too the person about odyssey and vl. you have it backwards. odyssey is suing brass eagle because of there evolution II. they claim that the evo II has many features that the halo has patented. if odyssey wins, brass eagle will have to pay royalties on each one sold.

then explain this:


www.viewloader.com.




just thought i would throw that out there. BE is suing Odyssey over the Halo because they use an eye to detect the lack of a paintball. thats what the VL patent covers(which BE now owns). there is no lawsuit by odyssy against BE that i know of to date.
its also kinda personal with BE and Odyssey, because the designer of the HALO worked for VL and designed the Revvie back before BE bought VL. he also was influential with the Evo I, but wasnt acutally around for its completion...he had gone off and built the HALO..basically a better version of the Evo I.

just little tidbits

[cledford]

Here is a very interesting link that sheds additional light on the Smart Parts law suits - posted at Doc's site by Aaron Alexander of AKA. He's got a lot of great information on the issue and provides some very useful commentary on both the legal and technical aspects of the matter.

http://www.northarc.com/~tinker/smartparts.html

-Calvin

[Kevmaster]

intresting Cal, thanks for that info

[ogre55]

The US Navy patent, which I read very briefly, seems to encompass the A-5 feeding system as well in a (paraphrase), "toothed wheel that feeds peletts from a hopper".

Ogre

[QuestionMark?]

Well, WDP is a English Company, so in a sense this only effects their profits in the United States, all Angels or what else WDP makes that infringes Smart Part's patent in the US only is subject to whatever the patent states. So WDP can sell whatever they want in England without SP's bull**** patent, but whatever WDP sells in the US is subject to SP's patent. All in all WDP can make whatever they want its just gonna be hard buying it in the US if SP wins.

[Ov3rmind]

Making new SP threads is bad enough, but do we really have to resurrect them?