Lure and Plug copies

[Mr. Sandman]

I am seeing a lot of copying of lures and plugs and wonder if there is a copyright or infringement law that protects the original builder or is this a wide open free for all?

For example, you know what is going on in the plug world but look at the metal lure market as well. There are those that are clearly making molds off of classics and reselling them under their own name. Is this legal? If there is no legal protection, (even if they make a subtle mod or two to the original), there is not real motive to spend the effort to make and tune your own when it will just be cloned.

Is there any protection for lure makers?

[FlukinUki]

Im definately not an expert but as far as I know there isnt any copyright on plugs, I could be wrong. I think most of us builders are making plugs to trade or fish, but not all of us. It was said in a few other posts that there are only so many shapes you can get by turning a piece of wood. You can make small changes to length, width, hook and lead placement but no matter what you make someone will always say "that looks like a ...." I guess that as long as you dont try to represent YOUR junk as someone elses product your ok. Example: I dont think marketing a copy of a Polaris popper as "Flukinuki's Polaris Popper" would make me any friends. Theres always room for experimentation with shape and color. But I dont think anyone would ever consider "stealing" an already recognised name. Just my opinion.

[UserRemoved1]

NO protection Jim. Someone already ripped off my needlefish shape, eye placement, hook placement etc to a T already and is selling them this year as his own. I bought one last week online.

I think it's one thing to copy a plug that isn't made anymore and make improvements/change it...but it's completely something else to directly copy and benefit off someone else's work that is currently being sold.

I've heard rumors lately of guys selling exact clones of Habs' needles behind counters too.

Sad.

[spence]

On a related note, I should have my new plugs for sale soon:

Crazy Buzzer Mini Swimmer
Dastardly Donny Swimmer
Spence's Slammer
Spence's Ci-gars

and

Spence's Nofty Needles



-spence

[FlukinUki]

Salty, sorry to hear that, Its pretty disturbing that someone would rip you off for a profit. Were the knockoffs priced the same or did they undercut your price as well?

[UserRemoved1]

I paid more for this one I got.

Spence can you sign one for me?

[spence]

I'll make sure I sign the one I owe you

That's if I can get some time to make the damn things

-spence

[Pete F.]

It's the same as any business that you can start in your garage with a minimal investment, very cuttthroat and competetive. There is no magic cure, you just have to market better than the next guy. If they are available and catch fish they will catch fisherman, especially if they are thought to have Mojo.

Now how to get Mojo you'll have to ask Habs.

[Mr. Sandman]

So...one can copy an exact replica of lets say a hopkins or castmaster or any of the gazillion tins out there and re-sell it under ones own creation?

[Jigman]

Originally posted by Mr. Sandman
So...one can copy an exact replica of lets say a hopkins or castmaster or any of the gazillion tins out there and re-sell it under ones own creation?

Yes, and the original company can probably sue your arse off too. Taking a lure off a shelf, making a mold of it, then selling it under your own name is illegal. The problem is proving it in court. How much of a modification makes it a new lure Some of this will also depend on whether the original company got a patent on the design or not. Make a few for your own use, I doubt anyone will say anything. Start stocking Wally world with your stuff, some will get

Jigman

[Nebe]

Anyone can go to a copyight attorney and have their plug's design copy-righted agianst infringment. From there it is up to the owner of the copyright to self police agianst people copying.. from there, you have to take them to court where it will be poven or not proven that there is an infringement. If its is found that there is a copyright problem, the owner of the copyright may be intitled to compensation.

[Mike P]

Originally posted by Mr. Sandman
So...one can copy an exact replica of lets say a hopkins or castmaster or any of the gazillion tins out there and re-sell it under ones own creation?

Copyrights protect written or published material--books, magazine articles, photos and the like. Trademarks protect the name of a product. "Polaris", for example, is a registered trademark of Gibbs.

Patents protect the design, and if you think you can prove that your design is unique among all of the plugs that have ever been built, an original, never been done before work, run down to the patent office and try to patent it. You'll be whistling in the wind

[Mr. Sandman]

The cost alone to get a patent on a single plug, lure or jig will be daunting to must plug builders. So what you're saying....it is a free-for-all just don't use the same trademark name.

[UserRemoved1]

I've never ever been able to find a Gibbs trademark on the uspto website. They claim they have "Danny" trademarked but not that I can find....the only thing on there is a old cancelled one from Lupo Tackle Co.

[DZ]

Jim,
Interesting question – here is a little background on one plug type in particular, the needlefish plug.
Most agree the Boone Needlefish was the first of its kind. In the early 1980s other manufacturers from Jersey started to make their own versions of "needlefish". Then Super Strike and Gibbs came into the picture in 1983 and 1984. At that time there was a "rumor" on the beach that Boone had the trademark to the plug design "Needlefish" and wasn't happy about other manufacturers calling their plugs "needlefish". Through my needlefish research I was never able to substantiate that rumor but Super Strike did change the name of their needlefish to "N" Fish.
Needlefish plugs, because of their simple design, lend themselves to easy duplication. Knockoffs were/are readily available and made by many different home made plug makers. Nowadays there are so many different 'needlefish type" plugs available that no one can rightly say that they own a particular design, especially if they continue to call them a "needlefish."
So… as far a needlefish are concerned, there is one true "Needlefish", the Boone. Everything since is a morphed copy of that original design. If plug makers truly want to call a design their own they should apply a unique name to it, such as Silent George did with his homemade "needlefish type" plug when he called it the "Silent Sand Eel" or Musso's unique design called the N Fish.
So, keep those "needlefish type" plugs rolling off the lathe. But try and be original and name it something unique. Steelhead has the right idea – he decided to make a "reverse" needlefish type plug. Very unique – an idea I've passed on to a few plug makers, but he is the first to apply the idea to a finished product. Just think – a reverse sand eel imitation, weighted in the tail end which is actually the sand eels head. Drop it back during the retrieve and the reversed plug heads into the sand. What a novel idea for a plug in the Cape Cod sands!

DZ

[UserRemoved1]

LUHR Jensen owns the trademark on "needlefish"

http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield...ate=gs6t4h.2.5

[Mike P]

Originally posted by Mr. Sandman
The cost alone to get a patent on a single plug, lure or jig will be daunting to must plug builders. So what you're saying....it is a free-for-all just don't use the same trademark name.

Yeah, pretty much. Most lures have the general shape of a fish, after all

Even with names, sometimes they just change a letter or two. Years ago, there was a big brouhaha between Atom ("Striper Swiper") and Creek Chub ("Striper Striker"). Two almost identical looking poppers with similar names. Dunno how that turned out, maybe Flap does?

Tony Spina used to market his Lex danny-style swimmer as the "Dani" and maintained that he named it after his granddaughter Danielle. And remember when SOL used to sell his polaris-style lure called the "SOLaris"? He called his stubby needlefish the "Stumpy".

[Mike P]

Originally posted by #^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&
LUHR Jensen owns the trademark on "needlefish"

http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield...ate=gs6t4h.2.5

Creek Chub originally trademarked "darter" but now some company in Alabama owns it, as I recall.

[UserRemoved1]

Interesting to note that LUHR was using it since 1965

[Mike P]

Originally posted by Mike P
Creek Chub originally trademarked "darter" but now some company in Alabama owns it, as I recall.

Yup, the memory still works OK

http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield...te=hl2ls7.2.12

[ROCFISH]

Even if you did invent a new plug and hired a patent attorney to research your design, so as to prove that it was unique and could be considered for a patent. Your rights to that design would only belong to you for twenty years. After 20 years it belongs to the public domain and anyone can freely market the concept.
I don't believe that anyone has a design today that is patentable.
If the first guy who ever thru-wired a cylindrical piece of wood, painted like a baitfish and attached hooks to it had filed for a patent, it would have expired long ago.
Although I am not a lawyer, I did at one time invent something that I felt was unique and valuable, and paid a lawyer $1500 to do a patent search, which is the first step towards applying for a patent. I learned enough from that experience to say that anyone can legally copy anyone elses plugs and sell them.
No that is not to say that its ethical or the gentlemanly thing to do, but aside from trademarks which is a different matter, there is no legal protection against copycatting.

[fishing bum wannabe]

I've been a flie tyer for 40 years and and a lure maker for 30 years. There are so many diferent names for flies patterns that are so similar to others that it is mind boggling. And yet the "inventor" will claim that his flie pattern is a true original. In salt water fly fishing there are probably less than ten true flie patterns, such as Deceivers, clousers, crab patterns, tarpon patterns, bonefish patterns (of which there must be 10,000 "patterns", all tied with a bunch of hair, dumbell eyes on a hook riding point up) with an infinite number of variations.

Plugs are no different. Habs didn't invent the "needlefish", he just refined a particular pattern to the point where it outfishes other commercially made needle fish. Salty didnt either. No offence meant, but I have seen so many variations of Salties style of needlefish on this board and SOL that I doubt that anyone can claim the pattern is unique any more than the fly tyers that claim (and name) bonefish patterns as unique. There aren't but a handful of unique plug designs around. Danny Pinchney didn't design the metal lipped swimmer. They were already around. He just refined them. Most metal lipped swimmers are the same design with variations that make them perform differently. You bend the lip down and move the eye down and you have a surface swimmer, you bend the lip and eye up and it becomes a deep swimmer. But the shape of the bodies are similar, the lips are similar, only details change. It's hard to patent details like a lip being bent up or down. What Danny did was, once again, refine that concept into great lures, better lures than most of his competitors made.

Stan Gibbs produced original designs! He invented the pencil popper. In other cases he refined obscure designs such as the bottle swimmer into a commercial product. I am not sure whether he developed the Polaris or not. However, without Stan Gibbs we wouldn't have these plugs. Stan has passed on now but I don't hear anyone complaining about anyone ripping off Stan's designs. When you see someone marketing those designs, and there are some well known and well respected plug makers making them, you are buying counterfit plugs. Gibbs still makes pencil poppers and Polaris Poppers that are the equal of any and better than most.

Speaking of rip offs. All plastic lipped swimmers derive from Rapalas. Lauri Rapala developed the minnow swimmer. They were the first, they were unique and with the exception of materials used and relatively small changes in proportions, it is easy to recognize there heretige in every minnow swimmer out there today. Does that mean that Rebels, Bombers, Yozuri, and 50 or so others that all claim to produce the best minnow type swimmers are rip off artists? Take a look in your plug bag before you get so rightcheous.

For small plug makers to stay in business, they have to do what any small business man does, produce what your clientele wants. Produce a better product, be out in front of people promoting your product and concentrate on quality control and you will outlast your competition. Develop a following. Don't panic about someone else ripping off your design (unless it's Pradco, in which case it's time to get in another business), just build yours better. Salty builds a consistant and durable product at a good price point. Can some fly by night plug company that makes duplicates, and markets them behind the counter compete. I doubt that they will be around for long enough to worry about.

But you say there is someplace where I can get Habs copies ....

[stripermaineiac]

Hi Guys, Interesting topic. To add just a little bit of a twist to it. I've been building custom fishing rods for over 30 years. In that time I've copied a lot of rods for people from production to other custom rods for any reason from looks ,price ,action and workmanship. All are the same yet unique in that I built them and not the original . I tie flies professionally also. Plus build plugs. The concept that anyone can own ideas or creativity are a little absured to me . The more that i hear some of you want to be comercial plug builders go at it and each other the more you make guys like me want to tell people to buy the import stuff. you guys need to get over you over inflated egos and come back to the real world.
You guys want to go into business then do it . Do like the big guys do. Spend the money and do it right. Otherwise do like the rest of us little guys do. Work at it enjoy it and hopefully make enough to pay for your fishing. but please stop tryin to find ways to cut each others throats and close the doors on wouldbe competition. To the rest of you guys that like to be creative and share it with otheres like i do my hats off to you. Ron The Striper Maine-iac

[bassmaster]

I see dead people

[PNG]

I see dead people

[UserRemoved1]

Another thread with a good discussion turns into a redneck bashfest.

Take care guys.

[Slipknot]

I don't see where there is any redneck bashing sorry , maybe I'm blind.

If there is any bashing, I can delete it, we don't need any nonsense in the forums.


Mr.Sandman, I think if someone wants to mold an exact replica of a tin already being produced and sell them as their own, then that doesn't sound right to me. At the very least, try to find out if there is a patent on it.
I know someone who hand carved their own baits and poured molds for them and now sells an improved product better than sluggos but similar(you know who)

[NIB]

Originally posted by #^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&
Another thread with a good discussion turns into a redneck bashfest.

Take care guys.

Funny I didn't get that at all.Well maybe in a few lines but not overall.As lefty Kreh says imitation is the greatest for of flattery.here's a guy who is responsable for a few patterns in the fly fishing world an he openly shared them even to the point of how to books an every other type of publication.Salty makes a fine fishin lure an from my travels all i hear is that the shops want some kinda product anything i swear if i heard this once I heard it a 100 times.So to me all this cryin about copying an candlestine covert actions on new designs are a joke.make what U can It will sell.Share what U can we all started somewhere.I remember alot of these new buisnessmens first few efforts an they were not unlike anything i see on these boards right now.its a shame alot of guys don't post anymore.Look how many Post's BM has.He barely posts now.I loved his energy an his Flare for design.Its too bad that there's this cloud over the whole building scene.basically for no reason.Quit acting like a big bunch o babies.sharing is good karma u can enjoy the gift of giving or u can take ur secret plugs an ur money to the grave a bitter man do what U like.

[BigFish]

Amen brother NIB! Seems like alot of the heavy hitters have taken their ball and gone home!

[Slipknot]

stop complaining
all of you

be happy