The Chinese have an incredible number of flashlight and battery brands that are in the format of *Fire. Is the success of SureFire responsible for this? I suspect that they are as there is an old line that says success breeds emulation.
So now we have UltraFire batteries and flashlights and counterfeit Ultrafire batteries and wrappers everywhere claiming absolutely impossible Lithium Ion battery capacities up to about 8800 mAh so far. We also have UltraFirc, HolyFire, PolyFire, KingFire, Fireworm, UranusFire, TrustFire, MarsFire, KinFire, SuperFire, UltroFite, SupFire, BestFire etc, and it goes on ad nauseum, batteries and wrappers listed for sale on the Internet.
If you can find them in genuine form some of the TrustFire batteries are pretty decent but they seem to be the second most counterfeited brand after UltraFire. TrustFire also makes two of the heaviest duty very high output flashlights made, the TR-J20 and the TR-S700. So far no one seems to have copied them. The TR-J20 is ultra modifiable too due to an excellent thermal cooling path and massive light head finning.
I think that goes without saying. When the whole LED flashlight craze began(when luxeons started to pop up and you could make LED lights that weren’t multiple nichia leds) Surefire was pretty much the only famous and big tactical brand in town. Sure, there were Maglite, Streamlight, Pelican etc but Surefire had a rep of being the Rolls Royce. When the cheap Chinese copycat brands popped up(not talking about the higher end brands like Fenix, Jetbeam, Nitecore etc that popped up at the same time) , they copied Surefire a lot. Nowadays they have evolved to doing their own thing, but the “fire” name is still there.
It’s kind of funny that other companies are now copying Ultrafire, Trustfire etc. I wasn’t aware of that. Since the used to be the copycats back then and why copying a copycat instead of the original?
How much of the "copying of Ultrafire / Trustfire" are not really "copies" but simply the manufacturers selling the same light with a different name badge?
For lights possibly though there are enough variations in machining and logo details on many SkyRay King marked lights as an example that I suspect multiple factories are involved, and the internal differences are massive. The same for some other lights that members have reported on here comparing a name brand light and counterfeit or clone. As I recall Ultrafire has a list of dealers posted on their web site who they state are selling counterfeit lights and batteries.
As far as the fact that many of the battery shrink wraps are available pre printed with bogus names and information make it possible for ANYONE to take any battery and re-wrap it as any given brand. Illumination Supply recently reported receiving bogus Sony 25R batteries.
I believe as of now several WhateverFire combined holds a larget market than SF, mainly because their market is pretty much restricted to the US and their lights are way overpriced for the average consumer… and many TF models are now brighter and better regulated, which is funny.
Do we have a CornFire yet? They should launch a special BLF edition, bundled with the corn charger and batteries.
Maybe we should have a contest for the best new **fire name. Like “friendlyfire” or “forestfire” and have the winners knock off bogusfire laser etched with the winning entry
At least you don’t have to worry about the Trustfire TR-J20 and TR-S700 being copied. There is such a small market of individuals (like me) that really wanted these 26650 & 32650 size lights, it wouldn’t be worth the machining costs to duplicate them. As for the smaller single 18650 size lights, that’s another story.
Names (and logos) are generally covered under trademark law, yet another aspect of IP law. Additionally The actual appearance of a flashlight may be covered under a design patent. A copycat is certainly free to try obtain a trademark for the “*Fire” when applied to flashlights and then enforce their trademark against other copycats. Whether they succeed is another matter.
Of course, that question is largely moot. Most/all of all these copycats are Chinese companies. IP protection in China is notoriously lax. So, just as Copycat#1Fire took advantage of impunity of lax IP protection, Copycat#2-2000Fire have assumed the same impunity.
What’s likely to happen is that companies will realize that being Copycat#Infinity-1Fire isn’t going to do them much good, and either pick another name in the first place, or change their name. After some churn on that front, companies in various sectors, who have actually managed to established a strong brand, or as strong a brand as possible, will start pressing for better IP protection. Either that, or hiring goons to do enforce their own IP protection. Either way, more formal IP protection will come.
