Sears Loses to the Bionic Wrench

[EOC_Jason]

I'm sure when the whole thing went to court many many years ago the guy thought he would get a settlement from Sears... But now that it has dragged out for so long he basically has to stick with it to try and recoup all the money he's shelled out to lawyers...


In the end, the only people that win when you go to court are the attorney... every time...

 

[kythri]

Lol, this is exactly why nobody gives a **** about inventing anything anymore.

Someone else with more lawyers, will come along and steal your idea.

The concept and the operational functionality, is exactly the same. The competitors just adjusted things around to make it look "different"

Are the Sears pliers almost the same as the Loggerhead pliers, with slight adjustments? Yes, certainly.

Did Loggerhead actually create something new, unique and patentable? Certainly not.

If you read into the case, Sears brings up a 1950's era patent (long since expired) as the basis of their design. When you look at that patent, it's clear that both the Loggerhead design and the modified Sears design are derivative of that, with no major change that would warrant a new patent.

Loggerhead either lied on their patent applications, or are just willfully obtuse.

Sears didn't "steal" anything from Loggerhead.

 

[Citation]

Without reading the deals of the patents we don't know if Sears violated the actual patent or not. Patents are very much devil in the details. Just because they look the same doesn't mean the law sees them as the same or that the Loggerhead patents weren't valid due to the older, similar product.

 

[kythri]

Some of us have read them (both Loggerhead's nonsense, and the earlier patent that Loggerhead quite obviously designed their tool from).

As was already mentioned, the earlier decision for Loggerhead was based on a jury's emotions, and not facts in the case. Loggerhead, from the start, has been trying to win over people to their side by framing this as a "David vs. Goliath" situation - the term is in virtually every article that interviews Loggerhead's gimmicky "inventor" founder, Dan Brown.

Don't get me wrong - in essence, Sears did "shaft" them. Loggerhead was counting on orders from Sears, Sears realized that they could bring to market a virtually identical tool, based on an earlier patent, and save a ton of money by doing so, so they did, cancelling future orders.

Loggerhead hitched their wagon to Sears, and it bit them in the ***. That's truly what this lawsuit is about.

 

[Mgdoug3]

That reminds me of the lawsuit between John Deere and Kinze. JD sued Kinze for patent infringement and Kinze counter sued. Kinze end up and won because JD patents in that case were based off prior art and not disclosed when the patents were applied for. Kind of the same deal with Loggerhead and Sears but Kinze was David in the JD/Kinze case.

 

[seber]

Damn. I have one of those in my yard sale right now. I thought it was a crimper. Maybe I should raise the price from one dollar to two.

 

[WWheeler]

Probably works better as a crimper

 

[Professional Tool User]

The tool itself is a useless gimmick, but Sears deserves to be penalized for underhanded practices in this case.

 

[kythri]

Poppycock. Loggerhead deserves to have their patent(s) revoked.

 

[Spiffers]

Fighting over a gimmick tool? What a waste of time and resources. Just goes to show the inept thinking that's sinking sears.

The whole K-mart thing made the sinking faster. Closing stores in towns where the demographic targets of year round lay-a-way was stupid. Mom worked for the one here and there were 2 times a year they made huge bank.....the months leading up to "back to school" and Christmas. Everyone said well there is the new walmart now but they only have seasonal short term lay-a-way.

At least there was some good deals on Craftsman tools and they let her use her discount the first couple of weeks.