Ugh. I really didn't want to post again. Alright, let me fire up the old memory banks. My apologies in advance for being a little rusty on names/dates.
During the early/mid-1990's, SP was just a small paintball manufacturer. Around 1990, they released a nelson clone pump marker called the BOSS. It wasn't terribly successful, largely due to their decision to utilize non-standard internals. For a several year period, they did not launch another marker, rather, they had an apparel line (Rase) and focused on their barrel line and being the main US Belsales importer.
Speaking of barrels, I believe they actually managed to patent spiral porting at some point in the early 1990's, despite years of prior art. Seem to recall them sending a letter to Glenn Palmer and him laughing at them. On a side note, though this came much later, SP managed to patent barrel inserts (i.e. the Freak), again despite prior art. The US patent office is so overworked and understaffed that they will approve anything. You should see the patents for time machines and elixirs of youth they have on record. They don't check anything. But I digress.
During the early/mid-1990's, several one-off markers were made into electros, generally with what we would refer to today as E-frame bolt-ons. But none were mass-produced. One of the notables from this period is the Revolution made by Mike Casady of CCI. He made a small batch of this electronic semi-auto marker, advertised it, and even sold a few before shelving the project because he was not satisfied with the design. Being the perfectionist, Mike went so far as to buy many of them back.
In late 1995, SP contracted PVI (Pneu-Ventures, Inc.) to design an electropneumatic marker. This was the first Shocker and would be one of the first two mass-produced electros to hit the market. It premiered at the 1996 IAO in Pittsburgh about 10 minutes before WDP debuted the Angel on the same stage. SP had exclusive marketing rights to this marker and sold it as the SP Shocker. SP also patented the marker at this time - how PVI allowed this to happen is beyond me. SP's ownership decided that it would be more profitable to manufacture the marker for themselves, so they split with PVI and served PVI with a cease and desist order - SP was able to convince them that they retained sole marketing rights.
On a side note, SP had the Shocker designed with a unique barrel threading so owners would have to buy SP barrels for their markers. When they later released the Impulse, they used yet another barrel threading pattern, again, so buyers would be forced to buy more barrels from them.
Maybe this would be a good place to stop and give a little bit of background information on SP's ownership. The Gardners, before SP made it big, also dabbled in the patent business. They ran one of those patent submission companies similar to what you see commercials for on TV. Send them your idea and your money and they'll get it patented for you. One of those type deals. Turns out they were running a scam and taking peoples' money and their ideas, and the FTC became involved. Perhaps this explains just why they're so patent happy.
I could spend a paragraph or two here on their turbo mode cheater board debacle as an example of their lack of ethics, but it's already late, and I trust you can google it if you're interested.
Fast forward a couple years to 2002-2003. Forgive me I'm a bit forgetful on the dates. Electronic markers were becoming quite popular, and quickly becoming smaller, lighter and more efficient. The Shoebox Shocker wasn't faring so well against the newer competition, and SP's other gun - their Impulse (a bushmaster 2000 clone) - had significant reliability issues.
I need to pause my story again here with a little-known fact about patents: you can revise them, and any revisions to a patent
will bear the original patent date.
The Gardners, seeing an opportunity, revise their original Shocker patent to encompass ALL electro markers. Despite prior art, this revision is passed by the understaffed patent office. Before the ink was even dry, SP was already choosing their first target. They weren't brazen enough to go after a stout competitor with the first lawsuit - better to see how the patent would hold up in court against a smaller foe, with less legal resources available to fight back. SP knew very well that any win in court, no matter how small, would set a precedent for subsequent legal action.
SP showed their true colors by choosing ICD as their first target. ICD was a small, family-run business (formerly known as Line SI) that was responsible for many of paintball's innovations in the late 80's. In the early 2000's, they were popular for the Bushmaster 2000, and then the Freestyle a couple years later. At the time of SP's lawsuit, it was common knowledge that Jerry Dobbins, ICD's owner, had just gone through major back surgery. I do not believe he even made a single court appearance. Despite enormous outrage by the majority of the player base at the time, SP eventually won their suit, and ICD was financially crippled.
SP instituted a licensing program, the terms of which have never been fully publicly disclosed. It's generally speculated that there are two options for a potential electro manufacturer: an upfront payoff allowing a given marker design to be sold for a given period of time; or a fee per marker sold. I am unsure if the fees are flat- or percentage-based. Slowly, many of the major manufacturers signed on to this program and opted to pay royalties rather than risk losing in court.
Around this same period, AKA was just making it big with the Viking and Excalibur, two amazingly crafted markers that were years ahead of their time. For those that may not know, AKA stands for Aaron Kendrick Alexander, the initials of the owner, a pioneering young man with an engineering degree and amazing design ideas. You may have seen some old AKA logos that spell out AKALMP, and wondered what the LMP stood for. It's LEADS Metal Products, the family's machine shop. LEADS = Larry, Eileen, Aaron, Daughters, and Sons. On a side note, Larry and Eileen Alexander are two of the nicest people I have ever met in the paintball industry. Larry gave my wife an AKA key chain at the 2005 IAO, and she keeps her car keys on it to this day, though she doesn't play paintball and really has no idea who AKA is other than the fact that she met them and I'm a big fan.
So SP chose AKA as their next target. Again, the paintball community was outraged. An AKA legal defense fund was started - by players, no less - and thousands of dollars of donations rained in. It wasn't enough. Like ICD, they fought long and hard, but with the legal precedent set in the ICD case, the judge ruled in favor of SP. I believe that SP offered AKA a chance to participate in their royalties program, and AKA decided that they would rather not make another electro ever again than give SP one cent.
AKA's loss was devastating to much of the paintball community. It spurred many of the remaining manufacturer holdouts to cave and sign with SP.
WDP remained one of the very few companies that refused to pay SP for their bogus patent, and would be the next (and final) target of SP. Everyone else had signed their licensing agreement. Now I'm a bit vague on the details here, but I believe that prior to going to court, WDP was able to track down one of PVI's designers and purchased his share of the rights to the PVI Shocker from him. SP tried to assert in court that he was a contracted employee, and had signed over his rights to them, but testimony and document evidence proved that he never willingly sold his design rights to Smart Parts. In the end, i believe it ended as something of a stalemate - it was concluded that WDP owned a share of SP's patent, and did not have to pay for licensing.
It's 2:42am and I'm having trouble remembering where I was going next with this.
...A quick Google later, I found a post Doc Nickel made on July 22, 2003 that someone saved. I should have done a search before typing all of this, and just copy/pasted something like this and saved myself some time. Oh well, here's the link regardless.
Tinker's Guild Tech Forum
Best woodsball gun for under $200?
