Spyderco Forums

:confused: Sorry, I thought this was a discussion forum. I won't ask another relative question.

Fishshooter. The patent has expired. The issue now is Trademark. The whole thing will involve a bunch of lawyers garbling back and forth in legalese. I'm sure everyone knows by now that I don't think lawyers should be allowed to exist, and that the world would be a much better place if all laws were written in plain language, so the people who have to obey the laws could at least understand them. :rolleyes:
I believe the Axis lock and the Ball Bearing lock are as similar to each other as the chamfered oval hole and the Spyderhole are. Both locks operate by a spring loaded object wedging against the tang of the blade. The objects used are different, the springs are different, the tangs are different. Both holes are areas of the blade where material has been removed to facilitate opening the blade with the thumb. The oval hole is not associated with Spyderco brand recognition, the round hole is.
For the record, I am no longer carrying my Mini-Spike, or any other Benchmade. I will not sell them off, since that would imply to me that it is OK for someone else to have them, which could be mistaken for supporting the thieves.

fishshooter wrote: :confused: Sorry, I thought this was a discussion forum. I won't ask another relative question.

the patent on the hole is expired but the hole is a trademark of Spyderco, there is no disecting it. It is what it is.

yablanowitz, I got ya. Thanks.

Someone else made the point over at the Benchmade forum, that a patent is for the benefit of the designer or creator which allows them to get paid for their work. When a patent expires it is for the best intrest of the rest of the market. It would seem that turning a "patented item" into a "trademark" when the patent expires is in some way undermining the process.

The designer got the benefit of the invention, and was given ample time to make profit from it before the patent expired. The market now needs it to benefit the end user.

Say that Benchmades patent on the Axis lock expired, and they then decide to trademark it? Would that be fair? Is it how the patent should work? I'm not so sure.

Benchmade may be challenging the "hole" trademark because they don't agree with how the hole went from patent to trademark.

I respect the person who said this very much but I also respect Spyderco very much. I never really thought about it from that "angle" before. It made me think about it.

My father has 2 patents which have expired. He got screwed over big time by a large company and a patent lawyer before his patent expired. The big company basically took his idea. Because he didn't have a lot of money he couldn't do much. So don't think that this kind of stuff doesn't hit home with me. I just really want to find out who is "using loopholes" here.

When I was still in the service on the last leg of my contract with them still working in the medical and dental field I remember when the Standard by Spyderco first came out. I also remember the EMTs down in the ER using knotted twist ties and zip ties in the holes even way back then to facilitate opening.

I'm sure Sal knows of this. Heck I remember folks buying those 'round hole' knives just for that reason so they could tie something in the hole to make it open fast. It was cool and a small fad for a short time where I worked at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois. The argument could be made that Ernie Emerson got the idea for the Wave from a Spyderco based on this information but did Sal use his 'feelings' that maybe it was really used in his knives first to claim it before asking to use it? No he did not. He did the right thing and approached the man like any man should and he asked. Thats how you do it. Its how my dad taught me to do it and its how any honorable man would behave. Ernest patented it. After that all other concerns are null and void.

Spyderco registered the opening hole. It is the single one stand out feature about all Spyderco knives that sets them apart from all others. The axis lock is not the single stand out thing that sets BM apart from all others. In fact BM didn't even invent it. They bought the rights to it from William and Henry as I recall.

STR

David Lowry wrote:The designer got the benefit of the invention, and was given ample time to make profit from it before the patent expired. The market now needs it to benefit the end user.

The market already has the benefit of the hole as an opening device. Several other companies, including Benchmade, produce knives with holes that serve that purpose but have shapes other than round. To the best of my knowledge David, nobody here takes exception to that. Many, of them, again including Benchmade, have argued at some point in time that the shape they were using was superior to the round hole. While some of us here would disagree, I don't think everyone would. In fact, someone posted here, or on the Spyderco/BF forum recently that they personally prefer the comet hole on the Byrds over the :spyder: round one. From a legal standpoint, making such a claim in one's advertising fatally weakens ones ability to use the argument that the "round" hole has some special utility over any other shape as a reason to void its status as a trademark.

David Lowry wrote:Say that Benchmades patent on the Axis lock expired, and they then decide to trademark it? Would that be fair? Is it how the patent should work? I'm not so sure.

Well, if Benchmade had used the axis lock on EVERY folder they EVER produced except one, then YES it would be fair (although I'm not sure if it would be legal since we are talking something far more complex that a color or a shape). As things stand, no, it would not.

The Deacon wrote:Aside from that, I think 4 s ter, as usual, has said it better and more politely than I could.

Wow :o I've been doing good this weekend :D

Andre V wrote:I know it wont happen, but it would be nice to see Sal fit an axis lock to one of his folders.

It would be interesting to see how benchmade would react. :rolleyes:

It makes you think, that if a company is willing to be so underhanded as too steal patented ideas, what other underhanded things would they do.

I admit i own quite a few BM's, they are nice knives. Stunts like the ripping-off of the Spyder hole, (and this is not the first time either), make me wonder why i am supporting a company that does things like that. :mad:

But if BM followed procedure, and payed the neccessary "royalties", issue solved :confused:

The Deacon wrote:Don't think this is the place for that, but if you ever feel like PMing or emailing it to me, I'd LOVE to hear that story. :D

Aside from that, I think 4 s ter, as usual, has said it better and more politely than I could.

You can also add me to that list Zac. I am interested in hearing it as well, and any documentation would be appreciated.

Paul,

Very good points. That is why I like this type of discussion. I don't always have the best point of view and I like to see the views of others.

Please do not get the idea that I'm thinking that Benchmade using the round hole on the Vex is OK. I do not. I see Benchmade as the big bully right now.

I wrote my previous post only because I read that thought on the Benchmade forum and it made me think a little bit.

Thanks guys!

It's a shame..BM made really nice spyderco terzuolas

David Lowry wrote:Someone else made the point over at the Benchmade forum, that a patent is for the benefit of the designer or creator which allows them to get paid for their work. When a patent expires it is for the best intrest of the rest of the market. It would seem that turning a "patented item" into a "trademark" when the patent expires is in some way undermining the process.

The designer got the benefit of the invention, and was given ample time to make profit from it before the patent expired. The market now needs it to benefit the end user.

Say that Benchmades patent on the Axis lock expired, and they then decide to trademark it? Would that be fair? Is it how the patent should work? I'm not so sure.

Benchmade may be challenging the "hole" trademark because they don't agree with how the hole went from patent to trademark.

I respect the person who said this very much but I also respect Spyderco very much. I never really thought about it from that "angle" before. It made me think about it.

My father has 2 patents which have expired. He got screwed over big time by a large company and a patent lawyer before his patent expired. The big company basically took his idea. Because he didn't have a lot of money he couldn't do much. So don't think that this kind of stuff doesn't hit home with me. I just really want to find out who is "using loopholes" here.

I think The Deacon said a lot of what needed to be in response to this but I guess I just wanted to put it out there in my own words. The difference between the Spyderhole and your example with BM have the axis lock trademarked is that you would be hard pressed to show legally that the axis adds anything but function to a knife. Let's look at another product for a second, Head and Shoulders Dandruff shampoo. There are many dandruff shampoos on the market (Tegrin, Selsun Blue, Denorex, etc.) but Head and Shoulders is a name that many people have come to associate with dandruff control. The name Head and Shoulders is a registered trademark of Proctor & Gamble. Now, most major chain stores like Wal-Mart carry a generic dandruff shampoo that is very similar (whether or not it works as well is up to the individual) but they have to stipulate on the back of each and every bottle that their product is not endorsed or produced by Proctor and Gamble the makers of and trademark holders on Head and Shoulders. Now, let's return to knives at this point. The round hole used on Spyderco knives gives them a very distinctive appearance. They have used it on nearly every folder they've ever produced under their brand name. Now, given the unique appearance of a knife with a big round hole on the back of the blade, Spyder co was given a trademark on the round hole. If someone disagrees with the trademark I would like to think they would do the right thing and challenge it in court rather than taking an underhanded approach and blatantly ignoring it.

IANAL; however, AFAIK, you can't trademark a feature, so nothing stops BM or any other knifemaker from making knives with round holes, as long as they don't try to use Spyderco's brand (i.e., the name and logo) to sell them. Since the BM knife is clearly not a Spyderco knife, it would probably hold up in court as there's no marketplace confusion.

[quote="Xplo"]IANAL]

clearly you are not a lawyer. the hole is trademarked. the hole is as much their logo as is the Spyder or the name Spyderco. Thus they were granted the trademark of the round hole.

severedthumbs wrote:clearly you are not a lawyer. the hole is trademarked. the hole is as much their logo as is the Spyder or the name Spyderco. Thus they were granted the trademark of the round hole.

Actually, I think the case could be made that the hole is a much more recognizable feature of the Spyderco folding knife since they only recently started putting the bug on the blade.

Hey everybody, let's all take a break and take a trip back to May 29, 1998, when Spyderco began putting stuff online (http://web.archive.org/web/199805290934 ... /faq.html). Note, this is *before* the expiration of the patent, which is important to the patent-to-trademark idea.

So, in our archived 1998 version of the site, we can access the FAQs section--which is presented by the link above--and we can see the use of the term "Spyderco Trademark Round Hole" as a main identifier of a knife being a Spyderco, aside from the obvious "Spyderco" word itself. It would seem that there's a long track record of association of the hole as a *trademark* of Spyderco, a track record easily accessible by everybody.

And, if you want to do some more intertemporal, intellectual right investigating, I suggest http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.spyderco.com.

The Benchmade Vex has the same steel in the blade as Byrd knives. A Spyderco collab?

http://www.benchmade.com/products/produ ... odel=10750

Vu

When I first read that it appears it has a 'titanium blade'. Then later it says its that Chinese 440C in the Byrd line. I may be a Byrd knife who knows.

Maybe BM has Byrd making the whole knife for them.

STR

docboy, first link doesn't seem to work. Possible to go through it manually though.

Edit: Oh, wait, the first link includes the bracket at the end.

STR, yeah, it's pretty confusing when they say titanium blade, clip and liner coating. Think they mean they've coated the blade, clip and liner with a titanium coating. Why they'd give the liner a ti coating is beyond me.