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well it's sad to say, but that's how businesses are run, do what you can to get ahead of the competition.
Like breaking the law? Changing a patent to cover such a broadly used concept is not legal. That would be like ford changing a transmission patent to cover the use of gears in a transmission, and make everyone else pay for them.
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Smart Parts makes good quality products, they have a ton of patents, and they have a corner on the market with a good reputation.
SP uses some of the lowest quality materials in their products, an mainly sell by hype. They have a ton of patents, but very few are their own. They got the original Shocker and Maxflow (originally the Shocker 2000) patents through underhanded dealings that screwed over pVi. They have a patent on how their barrels are ported, but how hard is it to think up spiral porting? It is argued where the impulse design came from, some say the prototypes for the Bushmaster came first. Granted, in operation they are the same as how many other guns on the market. The main reason for their popularity is cost. A stock Impulse cost less then a higher quality BKO, BM2k, Viking, Intimidator, Nemesis, or Cyborg. The only cheaper gun was kingman's Em1, which is a cheap bushmaster clone.
Good reputation? Lets see, when the turbo Shocker came out, they neglected to tell tournament officials that their factory teams had a firing mode on their guns that goes full auto after a certain amount of trigger pulls. They are known for shoddy workmanship on their guns, from the low quality "Velveeta grade" aluminum they use, to the quality control on the product. The freak barrels are known to be off of their marked sizes, and when you compare them to an Equasion set, there is no match. Heck, why do you think it took so long for the 03 shocker to come out? 'Cause they couldn't get it to work. Rumor has it that the one they showed off at it's debut was actually an automag in disguise. And when you get down to the new shocker, look at its main feature that they have patented. "Seal Forward Technology", where the gun is open bolt, until the act of firing, where the bolt closes to fire the gun. Hmm, if I remember correctly, the only open bolt gun that
does not do that is the Splatmaster. Look at your spyder, it does the same thing. The Nerve was supposed to be released by now, and if you look at what it incorporates, it is just a much upgraded pVi Cyber 9000. That was the first gun to be made with an LCD screen, the first to have an onboard chronograph, and the first to have a self-regulated dwell to control velocity (which cannot safely work, no matter how it is done, but that is another discussion).
Heck, even out of paintball, the Garderners have been in trouble with the law before over a patent fraud business. Looks like old habits die hard.
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you can rant and rave all you want about how the patents are worded and how SP is putting people out of business, but it won't do any good.
I can inform players, I can inform those who will be spending their money, and I will. as I type this, a group of us are contacting the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) of Smart Parts predatory and monopolistic business practices. What they are doing is wrong. What they are doing is illegal.
The only reason they have won so far, is because of the companies they have gone after do not have the funding to keep in court. Todays legal system is structured to where if you can not win by the law alone, you can win by outlasting your opponent in court via cash flow. And every new licensing agreement fuels that, until we all are paying our Smart Parts electronic gun tax on every new gun sold. Did they go after Kingman or Brass Eagle yet? No, because they know they don't have the cash flow to go after these 2 paintball juggernauts. But once they get a few notches on their legal bedpost, they have previous court cases (jorus prudence?) to ride on.
Thats no way to run a business.
Granted, will it do anything good for the sport?
When this started, we say a rise in pump / stock class play. We have seen the development of super light triggers for mechanical guns (the ULE trigger for the AutoMag) and will see more of that in the future (Tom Kay says he is working on a trigger with a pull just over the poundage of an electronic switch). Heck, it should be a good thing for the redesigned Vector, now to be called the Valkyrie, when it is released.
I'm sorry you feel that way, but just think if a gun manufacture changed a patent to cover "bolt action in a firearm" and charged every rifle manufacturer royalties to make a bolt action rifle? Where does any new manufacturing cost go? Not onto the company, it goes to the consumer in the price of higher costs and lower selection.
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