HELP! What do you think about this?

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Barbarin

Flashlight Enthusiast
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Pamplona- NA- Spain
Barbolight company spent more than 40.000 US$ developing and patenting our reflective wand.

Now a chinese brand -OLIGHT- has released this. I'm sure it is not a coincidence. They make great lights, so I don't know why they would like to damage their good name...

How would you proceed? Any recomendations?

Thanks for your input.

Javier
 
Is the patent registered or is it merely pending? AFIAK there is a difference between the two, the former being protected by law (US law that is). I would contact your patent attorney, and see what they have to say.

I am not a lawyer though, so.. .heck what to I know.

If I were a designer or product developer I (for one) would try and keep manufacturing domestic, and stick with domestic parts suppliers whenever possible. That way at the very least they can be controlled by domestic patent laws. Its clear that overseas fabrication houses have no morals/ethics when it comes to this kind of thing, they think nothing of cloning and even using the same tooling to manufacture cloned products.

In short... I would pull whatever tooling (heat staking, vacuum forming, cutting tools...etc...) you have located overseas and bring it back to domestic fabrication houses, that way you can enforce domestic law. Hopefully you own the tools and have legal rights to do that, and hopefully you can accomplish that before the clone company can clone the tooling & manufacturing process. If your clone-supplier owns the tool (financially has paid for it)... I think your hosed.

Litigation might not be your best option. If you own the patent rights to the design, get Olight to pay you royalties to continue marketing their product. Olight is gaining popularity, they are becoming a well known and respected brand... take advantage of that, use their reputation to generate revenue for your company, let them use your design for a hefty price.

just my thoughts, a phone call to your lawyer would be my first suggestion... good luck though with whatever you choose!!
 
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Thanks for your input, friends. Yes, I think every option needs a lawyer... fortunately a good friend of mine is a lawyer, a good one.

Kramer, thanks for your help, but I must say proudly that we keep the whole production of the wands in Spain, so no tooling or risks taken overseas. The problem is that it is a good idea and not expensive to make, so the only difficulty -if you don't mind about being sued- is ethics.

Regards,

Javier
 
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