M.O.R.E. plagarism

[bgcntry72]

I was perusing the www . mountainoffroad . com site and came across their 'rockproof' line of bumpers. If you look at the one for the XJ, it costs $476 and is an EXACT knockoff of the BPI front bumper, which sells for $308, unpainted and unshipped. You can find it at http://www.bpifab.com/bumper/cherokee.htm I placed a call to BPI and was told that they made a bumper and sold it to M.O.R.E. and they, too, were surprised that it was now somehow being sold with a M.O.R.E. logo. M.O.R.E. makes a point to say that they no longer weld on the eyelets, and that you will have to have that done yourself, after they sell you the eyelets at an additional price. Gee, I wonder why.
Tim Osborn at Blender Products (BPI) is great to deal with, responsive, fair, and a man of his word. I have his front bumper, rear bumper, and am currently awaiting rear quarter panel covers. It burns me to see someone using his design and passing it off as their own.
I would now never even consider buying something from www . mountainoffroad . com , regardless of their other products.
Thanks for listening and lets try to let those people who want to help the offroading community continue to do so, while doing our part to root out the other 'unsavory' types.

 

[XJguy]

Unfortunately without a patent they are fully in their right to copy other people's design wether its ethical or not. This is the dilemma I face in introducing my own products and wny I have not shown what I already have made until I am ready to ship.

Patent process can exceed $10,000 in research and legal fees per product. Then, even if you do have a patent you still have to hire an attorney to defend your patent should someone infring upon it. So unless you or the other party is selling millions of dollars worth of the design it usually is not worth it.

XJguy

 

[bgcntry72]

I understand your point fully. Mine is that BPI is not getting rich selling bumpers. Their stuff is of tremendous quality considering their prices. If something is wrong or doesnt fit properly, a call to them has a reworked part in the mail. BPI overnighted new brackets to me at no charge because some of my parts did not work with the original ones. I faxed him a design of what I wanted changed and he mailed them out that day, painted.
My purpose was to point any perspective customers in the right direction, as well as to acknowledge outstanding customer service and workmanship, two things that all of us wish we could find more of.
Copying a disign is one thing, but M.O.R.E. actually bought a bumper from BPI, and is now tagging it as their own. M.O.R.E. is better known than BPI, if only for their motor mounts. To me this flys in the face of 'little guy' engineering.
Interesting input on patents, though.

 

[xjblue]

Well, if M.O.R.E. is reselling BPI bumpers after buying them from BPI, BPI is still getting paid for making the bumper so to me it is not such a big deal if they stick thier own name on the product. It hopefully helps BPI sell more bumpers by doing so. I've worked in two industries, pagers and teleconferencing, where the same service was sold through a second party under the second party name, It's a very common practice, anything sodl "retail" is the same basic concept now that I think about it. Not to harp on steering people in the right direction so don't get me wrong, this is the kind of info that makes great for XJ owners! Just goes to show that researching a product before purchase is really important.

 

[Eagle]

I'm not a patent attorney, but I think XJguy is confusing "patent" with "copyright."

You can't get a patent on something unless it is new and radically different from anything else. At one time, for example, the concept of a "bumper" on the front of an automobile could have been patented. Once that happened, any front bumper that used functional design features substantially similar to the patented design would have been in violation.

However, bumpers per se aren't patented. Auto manufacturers all make bumpers, and lots and lots of after-market companies make bumpers. You can't "patent" a bumper.

What you can do, though, and for a lot less than the $10,000 XJguy cited, is register a copyright on your particular bumper design. Architectural designs for buildings can be copyrighted, so if I design a house or an office building for a client, any time that client (or anyone else) builds a building that looks the same I can sue for copyright infringement.

The same is true for anything that is designed. Register tha design, and then anyone who makes one that looks the same has to pay royalties to use your design. In fact, if the rules for the general business world work like they do for architects, you don't even need to make a prototype -- all you neeed to do is draw up the design and file a copy with the appropriate government office.

There's an MJ owner near me who is a patent attorney. If anyone is serious about looking into this, hit me with a PM and I'll put you in contact with him.

 

[Fore Wheeler]

well, look at springs. Rusty sells springs that are made by someone else, Big Off Road sells springs with his name on them that are made by Alcan, it's all about being the middle man, he too makes money, he saves money by being able to sell quanity, saves on advertising and sales time. I'd much rather sell a boat load of product X to one guy for a reduced price and have him put his name on it than sell the same boat load to 100 different people. It's all business.

 

[XJguy]

Having an agreement to re-label a product is one thing. Making a copy of someone elses product is another thing all together. Perhaps I misunderstood. I have larger companies with big heavy duty machinery make some of my components too, but they are of my design and we have an agreement that the parts are exclusive to me and are to be marketed as a product made by PUV. So although they are "made" by PUV, the actual fabrication is done by others. Every car company does the same thing, everything is outsourced nowadays, yet they still have the GM or Ford stamp on them. The days when Ford used to even make their own tires and glass are long gone.

XJguy

 

[bgcntry72]

Allow me to clear the air a bit.
I understand the difference between a reseller and a plagarist, but thank you for the clarification.
BPI told me they sold ONE bumper to M.O.R.E.
They were not happy to see it on the mountain offroad site as the 'new' xj winch bumper.
I love the products and service I get from BPI, so I post to let others know what is up.
M.O.R.E. is better known than BPI, and I am doing my (admittedly small) part to change that, nothing more.

 

[Eagle]

BPI told me they sold ONE bumper to M.O.R.E.
They were not happy to see it on the mountain offroad site as the 'new' xj winch bumper.
I love the products and service I get from BPI, so I post to let others know what is up.
M.O.R.E. is better known than BPI, and I am doing my (admittedly small) part to change that, nothing more.

Your position is clear and I agree with you -- a company should not be ripping off someone else's design and selling it as their own. It's an unfortunate reality that M.O.R.E can probably get away with this if the original designer didn't take steps to protect his/her/their intellectual property, I don't know if it's too late to do so now, but I suspect it is.

And, as XJguy said, there is a world of difference between a small vendor having something "private labeled," and a company stealing a design and fabbing their own copies with no payment to the originator. Frankly, I'm bummed out to learn that M.O.R.E. would stoop so low. Has anyone confronted them on the issue?

 

[pair8hd]

I think it is unfair to judge M.O.R.E on one person's hearsay. We are just getting one side of the story. If everyone is so concerned about BPI's welfare, why don't you call M.O.R.E and tell them this story. Sure M.O.R.E may have copied the BPI's design, but if BPI is not happy with that they need to contact their lawyer and see if they have a leg to stand on.


bgcntry72: You are taking this way too personal. From having talked to some manufacturer's and owners of businesses in this industry, this happens all the time (in this industry and others). Some manufacturers will even call other manufacturers and ask details on construction, mounting, etc. on products.

BTW - Why do you feel it is necessary to post this in all the other Jeep/XJ forums? Do you think you uncovered a big conspiracy? You are wasting bandwidth.

 

[Tom R.]

I'm not a patent attorney, but I think XJguy is confusing "patent" with "copyright."

It was easier for me to copy and paste, so here goes...

A patent for an invention is the grant of a property right to the inventor, issued by the Patent and Trademark Office. The term of a new patent is 20 years from the date on which the application for the patent was filed in the United States or, in special cases, from the date an earlier related application was filed, subject to the payment of maintenance fees. US patent grants are effective only within the US, US territories, and US possessions.

The right conferred by the patent grant is, in the language of the statute and of the grant itself, “the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling” the invention in the United States or “importing” the invention into the United States. What is granted is not the right to make, use, offer for sale, sell or import, but the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, selling or importing the invention.

Copyright is a form of protection provided to the authors of “original works of authorship” including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works, both published and unpublished. The 1976 Copyright Act generally gives the owner of copyright the exclusive right to reproduce the copyrighted work, to prepare derivative works, to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work, to perform the copyrighted work publicly, or to display the copyrighted work publicly.

The copyright protects the form of expression rather than the subject matter of the writing. For example, a description of a machine could be copyrighted, but this would only prevent others from copying the description; it would not prevent others from writing a description of their own or from making and using the machine.

I just learned about this stuff in my Accounting II class. Hope this helps.

Tom

 

[bgcntry72]

Long story short.
I spoke with BPI, and he is not entirely pleased.
The guy at BPI spoke with the guy at M.O.R.E., who said he has no intention of buying bumpers from BPI, just copying the one he bought.
I guess its my bad for defending a good guy and a great idea.
As to calling my post 'heresay', you can feel free to take that up with me in person.
I am seriously considering never posting on this board again.
I joined here as a way of thanking for all the great answers and ideas I get here, not to be labeled as a source of bad info by some ***hole(s).
I wish I was as much of an expert as you, really.

side note: MORE was a damn good company with great service, until Chris Overacker sold it not too long ago.

and another.............Thx Trl Wgn. The price hike has been since the new ownership at MORE has been in effect.

 

[gearwhine]

BTW - Why do you feel it is necessary to post this in all the other Jeep/XJ forums? Do you think you uncovered a big conspiracy? You are wasting bandwidth.

I couldn't agree more, I saw it on JU, and now here. They are two business' which i'm sure know what's going on. If there is a problem, they will figure something out. I can't really think of a reason this is that important

I found out burger king and mcdonalds have the same cheeseburgers. Ahh crap. _nicko_

 

[TRL WGN 1]

I don't see the harm in posting about this for others to see. Maybe you are a supporter of MORE and don't want others to know, but it never hurts for people to know the truth.
Personally I am not a big fan of MORE because of their price mark up that they are so good at.
For example, they sell the driveshaft adapter to adapt our u-joint to an 8.8. MORE gets 49 bucks for this, when it can be purchased many other places for ~25. It is just a Spicer part. This is a rip off to many people, but if the people don't know better then it isn't their fault. Big Country is obviously just trying to inform people to keep others from being ripped off of several dollars

 

[Lupine]

Heresay is not a derogatory term. No one is insulting you.

If you are taking an internet disagreement seriously, and are feeling like boycotting websites over it, you need to call BPI or M.O.R.E. for some body armour of your own, 'cause your skin is way too thin.

Check your dictionary.

 

[JnJ]

I've purchased stuff from M.O.R.E. and had no problems, will do so again if they have what I need. Make my own bumpers, so I careless about that.

 

[dmillion]

I don't think this posting was inappropriate or a waste of bandwidth. It is good for all of us to know what kind of people we're dealing with. In fact, that's probably the best thing about a forum like this.

I would be interested to hear more details from more than one source. No offense to the original poster, but I like to get some confirmation. If the story is true then M.O.R.E. has acted in a totally unethical manner, in my opinion. You can't patent a bumper and you can't copyright a bumper, but I would think there must be something that BPI can do. On the other hand, even if there is, it might not be worth the cost for them to pursue it.

 

[bgcntry72]

dmillion

Shoot me a PM or email [email protected] if you want to know the whole shootin' match.

 

[2offroad]

I don't go on hardly any other Jeep/XJ forums so this info is new to me. I think any info about other people’s experiences with companies is good, so that you as 1 person can made an informed choice about how you deal with companies. so this thread is not a waste of bandwith. IMHO

but most of my posts are.

 

[ChiXJeff]

Hang on a sec, bgcntry72, don't get your knickers in a knot.

For the remainder of this post, I'll assume that what you've said is indeed the case (and I suspect that it is.....)

Unfortunately, this is not an uncommon practice, and it's not limited to the off-road vhicle guys, or automotive in general. Unless you take steps to protect your invention, intellectual property, etc. you should expect to see someone else take it and clone it. This is a problem that ALL small innovators face.

For instance, the guys down at JB Conversions claim that the Teraflex 2lo kit is an off-shore manufactured kit that was lifted directly from their product. JB can't compete because their cost to produce is higher than what Teraflex is selling it for.

I've noted your posts elsewhere, and I do appreciate your tone in bringing up. Clear, concise, to the point, and you've used reasonable language (i.e. something you can tell to Mom.)

This wouldn't have changed my mind about using the M.O.R.E. motor mounts, but I'll have to give serious thought to buying anything else from them.