Smart Parts Strikes Again! now its AKA

[LaW]

Re: laW u the man

Originally posted by frost
u the man

HAHA... Yeah it sucks for AKA that they are being the next "small " company to be "targeted" by smart parts. But it does not make me hate them more, not yet anyway.

[teamkamakazee]

just becuase smart parts is doing the lawsuit doesnt mean there products are horrible they are simply doing a key word SMART buisiness move to make there company as big as it possibly can be. i dont hate smart parts or aka i just think that every one should have checked to see if there was a trade mark or what ever you call it patten. so its there falt that they are being sued. maybe they should have been more creative with there design like smart parts was. there i said it now you can all hate me or love me for saying the truth!!!!!!

[UThomas]

So I talked to my sister who is in her last semester of law school today about this, as well as my dad who is a senior board member in a telecom company. Anyway, here are some of their random thoughts:

-Trademarks have to be agressively protected, but patents do not as earlier asserted. This is at least partially because trademarks can be perpetual vs a fixed time frame for patents.

-My sister stressed how particularly expensive patent cases are.

-She also said that about 50% of patents that get challenged in court are struck down, which says something about the US patent process IMO. It seems obvious to me from what I have read the Smart Parts patent is (1) non specific, (2) ignores prior work, and (3) impedes technology

-There is precedence for this type of behavior in other industries. In 2nd generation wireless technology, Qualcomm sued a lot of people and basically has the whole industry (Nokia, Nortel, Lucent, etc) paying them rolaties. The way around this: 3rd generation wireless technology.

Microsoft also went through this. Oracle and Sun (both with lots of $$$) went after their patents very agressively and lost. That is part of the reason you see a big push to innovate in Unix/Linux.

After hearing all this, my personal advise to AGD would be to ingore until challenged, and then to pay the royalties and pass the cost onto the consumer. This should only effect higher end players who buy high end guns (in other words, don't spread it around the product line if you can help it). Innovate around the patent, or wait until someone challenges it. In the mean time take care of #1 (which is the financial integrity of your business).

[White_Noise]

first off, i dont see how some of you can just say "oh well" or "they arent really doing anything that bad". i mean really, this whole patent issue stands to ruin paintball.

for those in favor of mech tourneys: mech tourneys would push us back several years, which would be devastating considering the possibliities we have now of haveing paintball in its own spot on national television. mech tourneys would be far too slow paced for the media.

for all those saying that the other companys shouldnt join in with aka: by spending a little money now, they will save lots of $$$ in the future. once SP gets a precedence, all other companys will fall in turn when they are challenged by SP. they will lose more money by themselves than together. and once they have to pay royalties, the prices of their markers will go up leaving SP markers cheaper, and more affordable to those looking for electro markers. eventually, all other comapanys producing electros will go bankrupt and SP will have a monopoly.

an additional note, i forget who mentioned about blazers being fast, but both my mech cocker, and rt can outshoot my friend's blazer.

again can someone please send me a link to the SP patent?(dirtyground17 on AIM, [email protected])

thats my 2 cents, agree with it or not, i dont really care, but you will when you are paying outrageous prices for electro markers.

[phantomhitman]

mag-cocker lover
i posted a link to all of the smart parts info about a week ago. do a search for a thread named nice smart parts info.
the site has all of the real patents they are going after, as well as a lot of other information onthem.

[UThomas]

by spending a little money now, they will save lots of $$$ in the future. once SP gets a precedence, all other companys will fall in turn when they are challenged by SP

Well, there are 2 issues here. First of all, it wouldn't be spending a "little" money, it would be spending a "lot" of money. And if SP gets precedence, its not like they have carte blanche in the industry, they can still get over turned.

AGD has to take care of #1 and should just pass the cost onto consumers if they have to. Paintball will be fine.

[shartley]

Originally posted by mag/cocker lover
thats my 2 cents, agree with it or not, i dont really care, but you will when you are paying outrageous prices for electro markers.

Some might argue that folks ALREADY pay outrageous prices for almost ANY marker. And in most cases.... they would be correct!

[FriedRicE2]

Go AKA, I understand what Smart Parts is doing, but they have NO HONOR in paintball, just greed.

Does anybody know if the 3 ghosts of paintball have visited Smart Parts yet? Gotta cure their paintball greed.

[1stdeadeye]

Originally posted by shartley

Some might argue that folks ALREADY pay outrageous prices for almost ANY marker. And in most cases.... they would be correct!

Wow. This was your 7000th post!

Price is relative. Some might think that $1300 for an X-Mag is a bargain while others think it is a rip-off. It is all a matter of perspective.

[shartley]

Originally posted by 1stdeadeye


Wow. This was your 7000th post!

Price is relative. Some might think that $1300 for an X-Mag is a bargain while others think it is a rip-off. It is all a matter of perspective.

[Evil1]

Smart Parts just sucks.Period

[LaW]

Originally posted by AGDFlash
Smart Parts just sucks.Period

That is the most intelligent post ever...

[Evil1]

It is the the only thing that comes to mind when I hear anything to do w/ the company.

[Evil1]

Hey Law were you the one that had that one thread w/ pics of your SFL EMag?

[Scircal]

So....

Does anyone have a copy of one of the suits SP filed? I've read several of their patents (some more than once) and I still don't see how SP expects to win in litigation if the rumors of what they claim are true. If it's basically that electricity/electronics helps fire the paintball, no judge is going buy that arguement. It would be like IBM suing all other computer makers for building computers that run on an electric current. But at any rate, I'd like to see at least one of the suits so I can see what SP is claiming. And when are theses suits set to be litigated? Has a trial been set for any of them? Most civil cases I'm familiar with take at least a year and often more for hearings and discovery proceedings and such.

And yes, if the case is decided as SP wants it, it could have a monopoly on electronic markers. With the royalties, your assuming SP would license out the technology (probable, but they would still control the technology, which gives them monopoly power).

On an utterly tangential, yet related note, I can't believe people are comparing SP with Wal-Mart. They aren't even close to analogous. Wal-Mart got to its position by selling goods that were at lower prices than competitors, including mom and pop stores. SP doesn't do that and isn't doing that with their lawsuit. If anything, they are trying to stop the people who are undercutting them in price (say, picking up a BKO instead of a Shocker). It's much more like when Apple tried to sue MicroSoft for copyright infringement over GUI operating systems. Apple lost there, and hopefully SP will have the same fate.

SP ought to be careful who they piss off. PLenty of crazies out there these days. Someone may decide that they can't make markers if they don't have a physical plant.

Did you know if you mixed equal parts of gasoline and frozen orange juice concentrate, you can make napalm?... One can make all sorts of explosives using simple household items... If one was so inclined.