Unfortunately Mike, this is business. Someday, when you quit your great paying day job, invest all of your money in your dream, work 16 hours a day and do everything that you can to make it a success, you will totally understand why people patent and trademark innovations and the like. This thread is a testament to those reasons.
MRP's new LG-1 whoops... err G-2
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that right there gives me some perspective. i agree with patents on designs and all that because those things definitely take hard work and money, but i sometimes don't get trademarks. the name doesn't make the product so why get so damned protective of it?
on a side note, i'm wondering if that mrp chalupa will be available without the chainguide.
the name absolutely makes the product....it makes it identifiable. Have you never heard of marketing?
yes, but he's arguing that they didn't come up with it........ you shouldn't be able to go around, taking other people's phrases, apply them to your product and then trademark them claiming it's "yours". Especially when some may argue that the idea for the taco (design) pre-dates anything e-13 might have done. Again, i'm also an engineer (electrical), I understand the needs for patents and intellectual property protection, but, there are and should be limits.
Irrelevant. DW/e.13 was the first to have an MTB product named Taco. That's how trademarks work, within a specific trade. Hence the name. It's not like Taco Bell and e.13 are in competition w/each other.....
i just think it's absurd that a company is trademarking the name to a product that they don't even sell.
yes but some things are general names of things (bashguard) and some things are branded items (supercharger). Now what makes the taco the latter and not the former?
nah, that makes sense, you want to try and have the exclusive rights to something before you go around plastering it on your product as if it is your own brand name.
Kinda like Cannondale taking Freeride?
I used to Taco wheels all the time, guess I should have swiped the name up, I could have sold it to DW for a lifetime supply of chainguides
I used to Taco wheels all the time, guess I should have swiped the name up, I could have sold it to DW for a lifetime supply of chainguides
haha!
I have a ton of ideas submitted for provisional patents that we may never make. The key is that many of the ideas are similiar and we need to lock up the easy work arounds so someone can't simply change only irrelivant detail and copy it. Of course that is a balance since it cost my company 7 figures to get an patent approved and maintain and defend it. Therefore, we are fairly selective in how we bundle them.
As an engineer, I fully understand where DW is coming from. If people are allowed to rip off my work, I will have no money to buy E13's awesome products and money for lift rides. Then, I will lose my mind.
Anyway, go back to buying your nock off stuff at Walmart and get back to me in a few years and let me know how your standard of living is.
That happens all of the time and is quite normal.
As far as patents and innovation go, the pharmaceutical industry makes this child's play (no offense, Dave). When some idea or innovation is discovered - or even merely thought of - a patent is applied for it. This typically happens years before the product goes to market (or usually doesn't get to market at all). Then the idea goes through years of development, testing, trials, the FDA approval for sale. By the time all of this happens, the idea may only have a few years left of patent time before it goes "off-patent" and is then free for generic companies to copy, thus leaving only a few years of sales to recoup years of development costs as well as the hundreds of ideas that didn't make it.
i don't get why people are acting like i'm bitching about a patent. i don't like the fact that dw is trademarking the name "taco" when he said that one probably won't go into production and i believe e13 also didn't recommend using a taco when the lg1 first came out. to me it kind of seems like cyber-squatting. taking the name just so no one else can take it even though you won't actually use it. that's it.
patents on designs are good, trademarks on names of products that don't exist for the consumer aren't good imo.
patents on designs are good, trademarks on names of products that don't exist for the consumer aren't good imo.
I'm not, you can still be my friend there skinny dude! There are people on the boys hotline that are there to help troubled people. Go ahead and make the call, you'll be glad you did.
Sorry, too much late night infomercials crossed with time filler commercials.
Its kinda gotten a little outa hand on the patent thing, its not you per say. Its the ideas and bullheadedness mixed with product pride crossed with a little anomosity of a product that resembles another.
Oh, yeah Id rock the G2 as soon as its available!
Mike, I can see where you are coming from. On the surface it does seem silly to trademark the name "taco" as it seems completely irrelevant to the design, hell, it's not even produced by e.13!
But, think of it this way. You have no idea what is going on behind the scenes with design work of new chainguides. Perhaps their next product will involve a "taco" that is an integral part of the design, making it unique and giving it a distinct advantage over the rest of the guides on the market. By patenting the name, but more importantly the idea, they are paving the way for future developments from THEIR company without having to worry about others using the idea and simply marketing it as something different. The whole idea behind the patenting and trademarking is to protect the intellectual property, the idea, not the name.