Eternalight advertised at Walgreens

I just saw in the weekly flier for Walgreens (a drug store which also carries a *lot* of other merchandise, for those not familiar with it), an ad for an Eternalight.

However, it was a $3 AC plug-in LED night light. I haven't had time to check the store, but knowing Walgreens, I'd bet it's a Chinese piece 'o cr*p. :toilet:

But on to the obvious: isn't the name 'Eternalight' owned and copyrighted by Technology Associates?

We've all seen blatant rip-offs of name brand products by various foreign countries, but they *usually* don't steal the name....or do they? Usually, I thought, they just reverse engineer an American product, and sell it under another name. :nana:

This *really* bites, as I consider the EternaLight one the very best 'all purpose' flashlights of all time. I've given away at least a dozen EternaLight Ergos as gifts, and I own quite a number of them, myself.

Can anything be done about this blatant name rip-off? Especially since it's being sold though a well known brick and mortar store that is, AFAIK, a nationwide (USA) chain.

Wow! Talk about not looking before you leap. It's hard to know where to start.

You're talking about this product:


The LED night light is from Feit, a reputable U.S. company. The product is one of the better LED night lights, and whether manufactured in China or not is a very popular, practical and reliable product distributed under several reputable brand names. If, as you suggest, this is a ripped-off product, show us the original.

Feit is using the name Eternalite. Technology Associates uses the name Eternalight.

A name such as Eternalight can't be copyrighted. Protection of the name would be called "trademark", not copyrighted. Whether Technology Associates has trademarked Eternalight or not, I don't know. The issue has been noted in other products named the same.

It's usually best to let the corporate sector fight their own battles, rather than jumping in blindly.

Goldenlight,

"Whomever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters".
-Albert Einstein

It's right there in your signature.

Empath said:

Wow! Talk about not looking before you leap. It's hard to know where to start.

You're talking about this product:

The LED night light is from Feit, a reputable U.S. company. The product is one of the better LED night lights, and whether manufactured in China or not is a very popular, practical and reliable product distributed under several reputable brand names. If, as you suggest, this is a ripped-off product, show us the original.

Feit is using the name Eternalite. Technology Associates uses the name Eternalight.

A name such as Eternalight can't be copyrighted. Protection of the name would be called "trademark", not copyrighted. Whether Technology Associates has trademarked Eternalight or not, I don't know. The issue has been noted in other products named the same.

It's usually best to let the corporate sector fight their own battles, rather than jumping in blindly.

Click to expand...

If you look at the package, you'll see Feit is claiming a trademark on Eternalite- either that or on LED I took a course on patents and trademarks. It's in interesting subject. One of the reasons the corporate sector fights it out so seriously is to protect consumers from buying cheap knock-offs of their quality merchandise- not out of the goodness of their hearts, mind you. But it's already caused confusion. The link you provided, for instance, is to "Eternalight," which, if I remember correctly, would be more difficult to have as an enforceable trademark than "Eternalite," since "Eternalight" is merely a contraction of "Eternal Light" where "Eternalite" uses a non-standard spelling to create a unique impression. However, if there was a product in general use with the name "Eternalight" (without a claim of trademark) before someone claims a trademark on "Eternalite" it would probably invalidate a trademark claim on "Eternalite" even though it is more uniquely recognizable. To further muddy the waters the courts have upheld Heinz's trademark of "Ketchup" even though it was a common mispronunciation of the commodity "catsup" before they began marketing it. So maybe you're right. Maybe it is better to just let the lawyers fight it out. At least they're getting paid.


(no animals were harmed in the making of this icon- except a horse.)

HGB said:

Goldenlight,

"Whomever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters".
-Albert Einstein

It's right there in your signature.

Click to expand...

Ah yes: well, the night light IS a Chinese made piece of cr*p. I bought two of them to test, and they both flickered badly in absolute darkness. One was half as bright as the other one, as well. They went back to Walgreens for a refund the next day, of course.

Feit Electric is hardly what I'd consider a 'reputable American company', since they are apparently importing these poorly made, low quality night lights.

IMHO these night lights aren't anywhere near being 'practical and reliable product(s)'. Unless, of course, that is you happen to *like* a night light (or 2, rather) which strobes right out of the package. And I don't know if one was twice as bright a 'normal', or one was half as bright as 'normal'.

Perhaps if I had bought a larger number, I might have found one out of the batch which worked properly. But I have no way of knowing that, of course.

That's my mini review, and opinion, of these unreliable night lights.

I bought two of them to test, and they both flickered badly in absolute darkness.

Click to expand...

They probably sensed your hostility toward them, and decided to teach you a lesson.

They're like other automatic lights. If you place them to where the light reflects back onto the sensor, then it's going to flicker.

The lights are popular enough, and likely used by enough CPFers, that the users here will recognize your "review" for what it is.

By contrast, my review is that these are an excellent replacement for the standard incandescent nightlights, and won't require the frequent bulb replacements. They may be overdriven a bit, and after a year or two (yes, they've been around that long) they tend to lose a slight amount of brilliance. If you can envision it as still useful if it looses maybe a quarter of brightness in a few months, then you've got a nightlight that will probably serve you for the rest of your life without bulb replacement.

goldenlight said:

Ah yes: well, the night light IS a Chinese made piece of cr*p. I bought two of them to test, and they both flickered badly in absolute darkness. One was half as bright as the other one, as well. They went back to Walgreens for a refund the next day, of course.

Click to expand...

I bought one from homedepot and it looks similar, It works very well, bright enough to guide me to the "kings throne" in the dead of the night without having to turn the 60 watter on.
Once we had a power outage from a blown transformer fuse...some how this remained on when all appliances were off....It had no flickers, just cool bluish light... [up to this point I thought the neutral failed to open and I was asking for a surge, but none came] My wall meter from radioshack showed there was only 80 VAC instead of 125VAC

I thought LEDs can't be used w/ AC? Diodes limited the electron to flow in only one direction correct? so plugging a LED into a wall socket theretically your asking for an explosion or a small electrical fire...

So how does this work? Its light enough to convince me that no stepdown transformer is present, but because its a molded clamshell and cannot be opened without destroying it, I cannot confirm nor deny of this fact, PS... no heat can be sensed from the ficture even after 2 months of continuous operation.