Smith and Wesson ripped off a french designer!

[Midnight]

It seems ripping off custom knife designers has become common practice these days...

Case in point today: Smith & Wesson jacked a popular design by french maker Jean Pierre Beal called "calibre 12"

More to be seen on the website.

http://www.calibre12.fr/

And here's the version S&W is manufacturing in China and selling with NO credit or recognition whatsoever (finantial or other) to Jean-Pierre's work.

Unfortunately Jean-Pierre had patented the design in France and Europe but not the rest of the world for financial reason but S&W took care of that by just grabing the design and patenting it wordwide and guess what?!

It's called 12 Gauge!!!

Don't think anything can be done about it but me and more than a couple dudes in France need this to be out in the open to share the frustration!

 

[Mike Carter]

The truth is that patents don't mean much when you go up against big companies with deep pockets and lots of lawyers. He with the most money wins.

 

[murphda2]

It stinks that someone's work was copied for financial gain without the designer's consent nor recognition for his work.

Let's remember the rules and not turn this into something ugly where the Mods nor Admins have to be the bad guys please.

 

[smflorkey]

It's a shame S&W didn't license his design. On the other hand, since S&W is not known for high quality knife steels, maybe not having his name on the Chinese copy is a good thing in some ways.

 

[NoahL]

That is very unfortunate--it's a very unique and interesting design, and he should be recognized for developing it, regardless of patents. I know that it doesn't necessarily mean much, but I suppose we could send our thoughts to the people at S&W?

In addition, maybe the worldwide patent could be disputed by the knifemaker and he could go to a European firearms manufacturer and have the design put into production by them with proper recognition?

~Noah

 

[BossDog]

Normally, I would delete this thread but it is quite apparent in this case what happened and so I am going to leave it as the pictures speak for themselves. I am going to leave this thread but lock it though as this will just end up getting out of hand like these always do.
In fairness, S&W did nothing illegal. In the world of ethics and morality, it appears they copied and didn't compensate an artist which shows tremendously poor judgment on their part.