Jeer to those who distribute "Forged" U2 with SureFire Logo

Call it a clone or look-alike, but when product is being labeled as a SureFire, the line has been crossed in my opinion.



I personally will not buy any products from those flooding the market with fakes, only to end up on ebay to naive buyers.

NOTE: This link that was here no longer works. Evidently the supplier has removed the product from their showcase.

You may Vote and/or share your opinion here. Please keep it objective and non-insulting, in accordance with forum guidelines.

See also the following threads already in progress:

U2 clone review (Lux version)

U2 Clone - Of Course it's Illegal

Similar products are one thing; but, when they are marked exactly the same way as the original, that's crossing the line. Jeer, definitely.

It's interesting that the photos on that dealextreme page don't show any SF logos. It's that logo that's bothersome since it can fool people (ebay buyers, gun shows etc) into thinking they're getting a Surefire. That seems to be a real practical danger, not like those situations where someone sells a $5 quartz watch with a Rolex logo that's never going to fool anybody.

I don't have any problem with someone selling a light that takes general styling inspiration and has a similar feature set to a Surefire, they just shouldn't copy the logo in a way that might fool someone.

Anyway, Dealextreme itself isn't showing the logo so THEY'RE not trying to fool anyone or attract scammers (as tenfour said he was shocked to find a Surefire emblem on the light he got) but they ought to do something about it, i.e. sell a version that doesn't have the SF emblem.

I like the sellers, but I think the forgery is lame. I'll still buy from them, but not the U2 forgery. I didn't want the U2 forgery in the first place, though, because it's just not a worth while product. I'd more readily buy it if it did not have the SF logos on it, but even then, I wouldn't want it. That's just me, though. I'm sure there are many unenlightened people that will think it's a fantastic flashlight.

Which flashlight is forged?

This is one of those things that SF attorneys need to pursue. If it were an un-marked generic it may not bother me so but with the SF writing... :thumbsdow

Thanks for the warning, it's good to know so they can be avoided.

curtis22 said:

Which flashlight is forged?

Click to expand...

The top light in the picture of the first post is a fake.

I don't know enough about Surefire to tell which one is real from the picture.
I know a $20.00 "ME-2" is not a Surefire.
I know it's not a Surefire and still won't buy it or anything else from them untill it is renamed or removed.
I sent Kyle an email to the effect of the above.

Ask yourself...
What have you done other than gripe about it?
Be polite if you chose to correspond with DX.

DK

There has been so much talk about this light I starting to feel the urge to buy one.
Norm

The cheap 'Q.C. Passed' sticker gives it away for me. It's the type used on quite a lot of cheap and nasty flashlights.

I'm waiting for someone to buy one and then start whining that it's a piece of crap and therefore, ipsofacto, the REAL Surefire U2 is a piece of crap. Watch. It will happen... :ironic:

Who is to say it's NOT made by Surefire !!!

None of the fine details or manufacturing processes are the same, and SF doesn't make U2's in China. At a glance it appears that a real U2 was used as the form for making some of the casting dies for the fake.

this is a big problem in China.... the Chinese government classifies these patent/copyright infringments as a low-priority and won't bat an eye unless its a big enough problem that it will put a dent on international trade relations. Not likely to happen given that the U.S. trade imbalance with China in 2006 was over $200 billion and not likely to go down anytime soon.


WP

Norm said:

There has been so much talk about this light I starting to feel the urge to buy one.
Norm

Click to expand...

No kidding, it is almost impossible not to get one.
Just almost.
Topper

WAVE_PARTICLE said:

this is a big problem in China.... the Chinese government classifies these patent/copyright infringments as a low-priority and won't bat an eye unless its a big enough problem that it will put a dent on international trade relations. Not likely to happen given that the U.S. trade imbalance with China in 2006 was over $200 billion and not likely to go down anytime soon.


WP

Click to expand...

A good part of the profitability of Chinese heavy industry is based around that. Just a few months ago there was a news story about a German train company who designed a monorail for a major Chinese city. During the work their office was broken into. A year later there were identical trains running around the area.

Several folks on manufacturing boards I'm on have stories like that. Like a Chinese company buying a machine from them, then six months later asking for a repair tech to be sent. When the tech arrives he finds a warehouse of exact copies that have some minor issue that hadn't been properly reverse-engineered.

This just reminded me of something else. Can you guess what one of the big forging problems is right now? Fake transistors! Never would have guessed, huh? There are factories making lookalikes of either expensive or out-of-production power transistors. They make a similar outside case, or relabel other models, and the actual die is some cheap transistor that's only partially compatible. Big problem is the audio world. Guys are repairing amplifers only to find them blowing up because the transistors were fakes that couldn't handle the load.

I don't usually vote in polls, but I went with Whatever on this one. Mostly because it really doesn't matter who jeers, cheers or whatever.

What it all boils down to is a simple case of a copyright infringement on a registered trademark. And it is up to Surefire to do it's due diligence in protecting their mark through the available legal channels, and the applicable agencies (e.g. Customs and Postal Service) to prevent the importation of these products into the country.

The one thing that people on this site can do if they feel that the product infringes on Surefire's mark, is to show their support to Surefire by not buying it. Though I suspect more than a few might just out of curiosity and few less scrupious ones will probably try to buy them for resale to further the deception.

I wouldn't mind if it would just have the body of the U2 and they wouldn't call it a SF U2, but with the company logo and all that... it would be too easy to sell this thing on ebay as a original U2.
Sure, somebody who knows Surefire's stuff wouldn't fall for it, but Joe Sixpack who once heard from his flashlight buddy about this excellent flashlight that he calls a "Surefire U2" might very well be lead to believe that its the original.

I think the seller offering those has already registered wich way the wind is blowing arround here, the new version of this flashlight that comes with a cree isn't labeled as a SF U2 anymore.

Since this is a poll it is not a jeer, so I moved it.