Battlefoam legal notice...

[tajnisvet]

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/314511.page

I think this could be interesting, as BF is making Malifaux carying cases.

It is not going to end well for BF, lot of people have already been pissed off with GW legal ''letters'' around from not a long ago...

[XCoconutMonkey6X]

That is one hell of a thread! Well, it seals the deal for me. I'm going Sabol all the way. I refuse to dish out my $$ to a doucher of a company like BF.

[thaehl]

Really for me its all about the product and in my eyes BF has far superior product! (dont kill me its an opinion) If i spend as much as I do on models I want them safe and thats that. Legal actions are not of my concern, its their gamble, not my place, as long as they keep putting out great stuff ill buy.

[greenstuff_gav]

did this not come up recently with Outrider Hobbies?

and, as i recall, was thrown out of court?

i'll stick to KR

[The Madman]

Really for me its all about the product and in my eyes BF has far superior product! (dont kill me its an opinion) If i spend as much as I do on models I want them safe and thats that. Legal actions are not of my concern, its their gamble, not my place, as long as they keep putting out great stuff ill buy.

I'm with you

I have products from several diffrent companies-

i don't care about their legal squabble

does it mean sabol or whomever makes less for a short time?

Does it mean BF becomes a collectors item?

I'm a consumer

in the end SOMBODY will make a product I want to buy

[tajnisvet]

Just a quick update...

http://www.tabletopgamingnews.com/2010/08/31/38889#more-38889

This is BF clarification.

I'm not taking sides in this ''fight'', but there are many voices against those kind of treatment in hobby industry. Unfortunately, there are many willing to boycot BF from now on.

[ispep]

Actions speak louder than words. People can say "well I won't buy their product because of such and such reason" but when it comes down to it, those people probably weren't going to buy it in the first place.

If I had an hour of playtime for each time someone on the WoW forums said "This is the last straw, I'm not paying anymore" I'd have a lifetime subscription. Yet WoW still has more subscribers than any other MMORPG out there.

[DangerousBeans]

I'm confused. So BF are telling Sabol that they can't make any more foam trays after BF's patent for laser cutting goes through? Or if they do, they need to pay Royalties to BF?

This sort of thing just does not happen here in Britain, frivolous lawsuits are settled with fisticuffs over a cup of tea.

[karn987]

I'm confused. So BF are telling Sabol that they can't make any more foam trays after BF's patent for laser cutting goes through? Or if they do, they need to pay Royalties to BF?

This sort of thing just does not happen here in Britain, frivolous lawsuits are settled with fisticuffs over a cup of tea.

I really wish things were done that was in the US... at least it would be easier to follow. *throws hands up* and I thought BF was an ok company despite the Origins rep trying to force a bag on me I didn't want.

Ah well. *takes out the same marker used on GW and PP and starts to color BF*, really hope they change their tune before I finish coloring.

[Catyrpelius]

As I understand it, the C&D letter isnt asking Sabol to stop makeing foam, it is instead asking Sabol to track the amount of Outrider foam they sell.

[Iamwyrd]

Its a little thing called "friendly competition", I don't think BF needs to have their dirty little noses in sabols business at all. Sabol isn't even a laser cut industry like it said. Why does BF even care what they sell. BF is yet again knocked a few pegs down IMO. First it was the Malifaux bag, not having big enough slots and chipping the paint right off my models. And now its this delving their noses into someone else's business. It seems childish. If they can't handle competition, then they are in the wrong business.

That's my two cents.

[jmp_mydog]

As I understand it, the C&D letter isnt asking Sabol to stop makeing foam, it is instead asking Sabol to track the amount of Outrider foam they sell.

Which makes sense, because the court case was thrown out, because there weren't substantial grounds.

Pretty dumb is you ask me, I like the product, but the public airing of dirty laundry is bad form.

[Catyrpelius]

I agree, I like Battlefoams products, but I think they are going to get alot of negative pubilicity from this.

[WookieeGunner]

The funny part is, BattleFoam isn't the one airing the dirty laundry but everyone is blaming them for this. From reading both the letter and the explanation (and the fact that the C&D was struck out of the title) this looks like a standard case of someone feeling their patent is being infringed on and is prepping their legal defense (the first case was thrown out but it was because the judge felt there wasn't enough evidence to continue. The legality of the patent was never determined, so Romeo has the ability to refile once he has better evidence that Outrider is infringing on his patent.).

This happens all the time in every industry out there, the only difference is that in this case the companies are throwing this up on the Internet to the masses. I mean, how is this any different than when Steve Jackson Games posted emails from White Wolf about why GURPS lost the World of Darkness liscence?

[nilus]

Yeah honestly it looks like Battlefoam sent a letter to Sabol and Sabol then posted it to the world with a banner that says "Look at what these dicks are doing".

Is the letter from Battlefoam bad form....Maybe. If you believe what Romeo says in the followup it sounds like typical legal warning stuff that goes out with patents. Is Sabol complete innocent....maybe not. If they are putting selling there product with foam produced by another company that is violating Battlefoams patent then they might be held accountable.

Personally I have several Sabol bags and one Battlefoam bag. I don't plan to stop buying either over this news.

[Sobek]

As I understand it the BF people got a bit confused when they saw some laser-cut foam trays for Sabol's cases. They didn't realize that Sabol wasn't selling them; just that they were made for Sabol's bags. They look a bit silly because of the lack of simple research, but whatever.

The real wierd thing about thsi whole thing, in my eyes, is what exactly BF is trying to patent. They're not patenting the lasers; they're not patenting the foam trays. The patenting the using of lasers to cut the foam trays. That's kind of like someone trying to patent using a drill press to drill holes into a piece of sheet metal. The whole thing is kind of silly in my mind....

[jmp_mydog]

As I understand it the BF people got a bit confused when they saw some laser-cut foam trays for Sabol's cases. They didn't realize that Sabol wasn't selling them; just that they were made for Sabol's bags. They look a bit silly because of the lack of simple research, but whatever.

The real wierd thing about thsi whole thing, in my eyes, is what exactly BF is trying to patent. They're not patenting the lasers; they're not patenting the foam trays. The patenting the using of lasers to cut the foam trays. That's kind of like someone trying to patent using a drill press to drill holes into a piece of sheet metal. The whole thing is kind of silly in my mind....

+1 laser cutting is used everywhere. It makes sense for their bag designs, but really its not reinventing the wheel.

[kbdrand]

I agree. Patenting the process for laser cutting foam trays and the resulting trays is just stupid. The entire U.S. patent process is broken and has been for some time. I love the battlefoam product, but I'm not real happy about the battlefoam company. For shame Battlefoam!

[LoboStele]

Well, you got to think about it from the company's perspective though. They probably paid good R&D money to develop that process. Now some other company wants to come along, basically steal their idea, and produce the same product, but without spending the money up front in order to do the research and stuff. If the US Patent laws didn't prevent this kind of stuff, then companies would either go out of business because some one else was always stealing their ideas, or companies would stop coming up with new ideas. It's not necessarily a perfect system, but it's there to keep companies from screwing each other over.

Based on my limited understanding of this situation, it seems to me that Battlefoam is in the right here. They have a process/product that they spent the time/money to develop, and someone else is trying to cut in on their action. They have every right to say "Hey, that was our idea first!"

[Wyrrn]

But I wonder...was it really their idea first, or were they just the first to patent it? I seem to remember some older miniature companies that had what seemed like laser-cut foam in their boxed sets, which IMO are the same thing.

I'm not going to judge either company based on this squabble (yet). However, I have in the past seen some quite childish on-line antics from the BF owner while he's been acting in an official capacity. That alone is probably not helping his case in the eyes of some gamers.

[LoboStele]

But I wonder...was it really their idea first, or were they just the first to patent it? I seem to remember some older miniature companies that had what seemed like laser-cut foam in their boxed sets, which IMO are the same thing.

Well, true, that's always an issue with patent law. It's a matter of proving who came up with the idea first. Sometimes it's just simply that two companies come up with at the same time, but Company A is much larger, with better lawyers, and is able to get their patent through the system first, thus killing Company B. Honestly though, patent law has been around long enough that anyone who comes up with something and doesn't patent it immediately, it's kind of their own dumb fault. Still not right for another company to steal it, but that's how things go.

[kbdrand]

If they created the laser or machine to cut the foam I could see patenting it. But if all they did was say 'Hey! We should use this existing laser cutting machine and use it to cut foam!' then it should not be patentable. Unfortunately, much of the patent process allows these concepts to be patented.

[LoboStele]

If they created the laser or machine to cut the foam I could see patenting it. But if all they did was say 'Hey! We should use this existing laser cutting machine and use it to cut foam!' then it should not be patentable. Unfortunately, much of the patent process allows these concepts to be patented.

Since I work for a company that puts a lot of time/effort into developing manufacturing processes though, I can understand being able to patent this. What they would be patenting would basically be process. There is probably very particular details like the type of laser, speed of cutting, intensity of the beam, foam material type, cutting angles, etc. All of these probably required months of development testing, or hiring people who are experts in these areas to develop said process. Again, Battlefoam likely spent a lot of money to do this, and are just trying to make sure that they can recoup those expenses through sale of their product.

Come to think of it, there's plenty of things in my industry where the patent law doesn't help us enough, and we end up getting hosed for it. We do all the engineering work, and somebody else reverse engineers it (not even close to as much work involved), and then sells a cheaper, inferior product. But the systems in place don't prevent this, and thus make it tougher for us to sell our product. In the end, we stand to potentially lose money because of things like this. It causes us a lot more work and headache to go to our customers and try to convince them why it's worth it to spend the little bit of extra money for our OEM parts.

[goblyn13]

Which makes sense, because the court case was thrown out, because there weren't substantial grounds.

Pretty dumb is you ask me, I like the product, but the public airing of dirty laundry is bad form.

The court case wasn't thrown out due to Substantial grounds it was thrown out due to Jurisdictional venue. (ie, the lawsuit was filed in NH while BF and Outrider both exist in AZ, and neither of them had significant presence to warrant a trial in NH)

That's a serious difference.

[Atticus]

The real wierd thing about thsi whole thing, in my eyes, is what exactly BF is trying to patent. They're not patenting the lasers; they're not patenting the foam trays. The patenting the using of lasers to cut the foam trays. That's kind of like someone trying to patent using a drill press to drill holes into a piece of sheet metal. The whole thing is kind of silly in my mind....

Unless something has changed which I doubt, what you say is why BattleFoam has a patent application and not a patent. One is protectable the other is not and may be a pipe dream.

One of the reasons you do not see as many of these lawsuits in the U.K. as in the U.S. is that the loser of a case typically has to pay the winner's court costs. It puts a serious damper on frivolous/harassing lawsuits. We have a similar concept in Rule 11( sanctions which the judge referenced in BattleFoam's suit against Outrider when he tossed the case, but it's rarely enforced in this country. It's much less accepted here, for the most part lawyers try to have a congenial relationship and not resort to such heavy handed tactics. Although you always have some that want to push the envelope with everything.