Playing devil's advocate here, but aren't nearly all budget lights clones or blatant design rip-offs? To adopt such a hardcore black & white view point with no grey area logically follows that Solarforce, Ultrafire, Trustfire, and all the other xxxfires out there unjustly ripped off Surefire lights and blatantly stole their design. Do you own any of those clones listed? Solarforce parts are completely interchangeable with Surefire parts.
Using the Gatlight as an example, at least Uniquefire changed a few things on the XG-V3, like adding LEDs around the perimeter, having a solid tube core to provide some water resistance instead of an exposed battery, and using a solid reflector instead of an exposed TIR optic like done in the Gatlight. Does it take design cues from the Gatlight? Sure it does but nothing between them is interchangeable. They are truly..."Unique". Doesn't stop CPF die-hards from screaming bloody murder about it cheapening their $500 Gatlights.
If you are that hardline in your thinking about this and other knock-offs then I sure hope you don't own any Solarforce or ****Fire lights or you are condoning that which you condemn.
Now I haven't followed the story of this particular light and who the guy stole his design from. It may very well be blatant thievery and I would, of course, object to it. But to paint this action along with all other "cheap knock offs" as "black & white" wrong is a slippery slope into the grey area.
Johnny, I have been thinking the same thing all day. I don’t like the blatant design rip off of this light but I also buy solarforce lights and other ripoff clones all the time. Where is that line between the acceptable rip off and the unacceptable ripoff? Its different for everyone, I don’t even know where it is for me.
Javier's case was not about cloning, it was blatant theft by a business partner. Have you all read the history? I'm not trying to argue the whole patent infringement issue, just this particular case. Puritanism has nothing to do with it.
I actually feel sorry for Xavier, his work stolen and others make money with his work, others that apparently had no diving flashlights before. And they even say on their website that they work with Javier.
In a nutshell: Javier (Xavier?) is a passionate designer who worked for several years on perfecting a new dive flashlight. He was working with this group to bring the light to market, instead they took his design without payment and developed the light themselves. And they have the audacity to claim him as a partner. I will try to find the whole thread to link to and post it here later (Hikelite - do you have the link?). It is a disheartening read.
This guy is one of us. If he was a BLF member, I bet nobody here would want to have anything to do with Xeccon. And that is why FlashPilot, to his credit, posted this poll. Again, thanks for asking, FlashPilot.
Too bad. Here's the CPF Thread. Things start to go South around post #46. Javier (Handle: Barbarin) starts to weigh in at post #59. Post #88: Javier re-posts his original post from BLF (the thread that got closed). Give it a read if you have a couple of hours to spare...
Knowing now the circumstances in this situation I totally agree that the review should not be posted. This case is beyond simple copying of design by one company of anothers. THis is a personal screwing by a company of the guy that worked with them to design a light and stole his ideas. Truly different than one company copying another's designs.
That said, I still stand by my statement that you cannot put a blanket black & white view on cloning someone elses design(s). It happens in every industry by not only Chinese companies but by every practically every manufacturer in existence in one way or another.
The difference is that with *fires and other clones the original designer/maker had already profited from it or is still making profits. And they didn't make a contract with anyone to create a design and then not pay for his creation. They just made clones.
Letting the reader decide whether to buy the light despite the back story is ideal. But we know what is ideal seldom happens in reality. Because of the good review, most of the people who read it will buy the light from Xeccon. The effect is Xeccon profited from a design they ripped off Javier, bottomline.
I believe it matters "how" it got stolen and "what" got stolen.
"how" it got stolen (from what I understand by this thread and not knowing the issue any further) for me is a big red flag. You don't steal your business partner, period.
"what" got stolen is something I didn't understand by reading this thread... Does this flashlight has something really different than any other flashlight? Is it just "similar looking" to the original design or there is a real invention underneath that got stolen?
I am probably not buying it because I don't like to encourage thieves, but I would like to read a review about it. It surely hurts the original designer to not earn from it what he should, but it could also give him some positive feelings reading an educated opinion about his design in which he is credited properly.
Actually according to that recent lawsuit, a lot of our lights' designs are copied from Surefire and its design. A good example would be Solarforce. Just a degree of "severity".
So then, where's the line? So this case is a design copy of 2 "partners".... similar cases happened before to Sunwayman, 47s Maelstrom etc right? That variable ring control design case. And now they are the ones being sued by Surefire.
We even had a really big group buy ~100pcs with Dinodirect? LOL!
And now we have budgetlights copying that ring design.
Yes that is not merely cloning, the design was stolen if i remember correctly, quite similar to this case.
Etc etc.... I can't remember and so can't post everything....
I don’t see the point of a review or of taking a free light from this company.
The only point of a review is to let people know it’s OK to buy the product. Why review it and say it’s a good dive light but you should buy it from this company?
To me the circumstances in this case are quite different from a company copying a Surefire. In the case of a Surefire clone they just looked at a Surefire and did their own version.
I don’t really see any clones that actually look like a Surefire 6P for instance to me.
In the current case they we given Javier’s specs and misused them.
Bro, i think that is just semantics. All along the folks here (esp those in Germany I read) who support IP advocate "copying = copying no matter how you twist it".
Problem is, the clones on DX/powerwholesale/ez-young/bestinone.net don't really look the same too, in fact they slapped their own chinese brands and logos. LOL! It's very easy to differentiate.
The other case of copying of the variable control magnetic ring design is very much similar to this case. There was a blatant copy of the design, specifications and "how-to-do-it" (notes and all, it was posted on CPF but i can't find it now) from 4 sevens.
Actually I have really have no interest in such cases regarding IP, just sharing info here man. My point is that cases like these always happens....
"Just providing the story of the other side of the coin". Coz i see so many cases of "copying" in various degrees, hence i'd like to ask "where do we draw the line". If you read the posts @ CPF especially, it's as if we are providing a death sentence....
Just saying... seriously i have no interest in the lights. hehe...
