NFOA MEMBERS FORUM
Gear & Equipment => Holsters & Leather Goods => Topic started by: sparky on November 06, 2014, 06:34:00 PM
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http://concealednation.org/2014/11/holster-industry-shakeup-crossbreed-goes-after-hybrid-holster-makers-claiming-patent-infringement/
(http://concealednation.org/2014/11/holster-industry-shakeup-crossbreed-goes-after-hybrid-holster-makers-claiming-patent-infringement/)
Alien holsters is fighting back though. This could be interesting since it seems like a new hybrid holster company pops up daily. It will be interesting to see how this shakes out.
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I don't think it will be won by Crossbreed, but I might have been wrong before, lol.
I have both. I would probably prefer the Crossbreed but think it is over priced. I don't have a Glock any more so I may send in the Alien kydex in for an M&P. It is nice that they do that. Of course I will have a Glock again and for the price, I may just buy another Alien, lol.
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There were several makers that came out with this at about the same time, and then several have sprouted up since then. I don't see how they could award this to Crossbreed either.
I have a couple of hybrid holsters from Tucker Gunleather and they claim to be the original so who knows.
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My understanding was always that Tucker was the first.
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I wonder how this will impact Crossbreed's business.
There have been several IT companies go out of business because they filed a patent and tried to force other companies into paying them licensing fees. The problem is that people don't tend to support a business practice like that and will walk away from doing business with those aggressive companies.
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I wonder how this will impact Crossbreed's business.
There have been several IT companies go out of business because they filed a patent and tried to force other companies into paying them licensing fees. The problem is that people don't tend to support a business practice like that and will walk away from doing business with those aggressive companies.
Yeah, that was my first thought. One of the reasons I don't support Apple is because they patent stuff well after the fact and then sue the original inventor out of business.
I was planning to pick up some Crossbreed holsters but issues like this reduces that possibility.
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I wonder if they will are trying to sell licenses for the product or if they sent out cease and desist letters. Looking at their patent it looks like they are trying to make it so any "decorative" belt clips on a IWB holster is a part of their patent.
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The abstract is not the actual legal part of the claim of invention. The decoration or adornment claim isn't until Claim 3 on the patent and is completely disjointed from Claim 1 and 2. Claim 1 and 2 are for a basic hybrid holster without any decorative adornment. Those two claims are essentially a backdoor attempt to claim an invention in lue of another older patent of which they are neither the inventor nor assignee.
Claim 1 and Claim 2 should be canceled and stricken from their patent. As far as decorative adornment, users can just bedazzle the retention clips themselves...
Edit: Claim 8 (a primary claim) and Claim 9 (secondary to Claim 8 ) don't have a decorative adornment clause. It's not until Claim 10 builds on Claim 8 & 9 that they claim a further decorative invention.
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Crossbreed sent cease and desist letters and Alien filed what's called a declaratory judgment action. That is a suit where the court is asked to determine if the Alien holster infringes or if the patent is invalid.
I looked at the patent when people first noticed that it had issued. The place to look to see what it most broadly covers is Claim 1.
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Yeah, that was my first thought. One of the reasons I don't support Apple is because they patent stuff well after the fact and then sue the original inventor out of b
As Microsoft has done more times than you can count.
Crossbreed's job is to establish prior art existing before the date of the patent application. So many times patent factories create pending patents and then watch the industry to identify trends or successes and then modify their patent to include those. It's called a "submarine" patent. Although frowned upon to day there are many tricky ways to do the same thing.
And, the broader the claims the more territory they cover. Also, filing the law suite in East Texas is a common tactic for lawyers whose only creations are patent suits used to extort money.