Copy Cats and Market Shift

Something tells me many vendors wish there was such thing as patent pending worldwide

Something tells me many vendors wish there was such thing as patent pending worldwide

Copyright in China literally translates to, "We have the right to copy any and all of your shit."

People on Internet forums tend to see things through the "lens" of such forums. Not everyone who reads these forums posts and not everyone who has converted to DE/SE wet shaving is continuously throwing bushels of money at vendors for new & better razors, soaps & brushes. I know of three or more I have converted who are as happy as clams using sub $20 razors and have no plans to upgrade. They view shaving as a job and not some Bacchanalian morning "orgy".

Sell to the masses and you'll eat with the classes.

I have seen pics of 2 clones of two main DE razors in the market coming out of China. They expecting to hit the US market at the end of the year. Some folks are not going to be happy, but that is how it works unfortunately.

Well now I am curious.  Which razors?

The Parthenon is probably one of them. It's an all brass adjustable except for the tray. Try manufacturing an all brass adjustable razor in the US and see what that would cost you. I'll bet it is more than $49.

People on Internet forums tend to see things through the "lens" of such forums. Not everyone who reads these forums posts and not everyone who has converted to DE/SE wet shaving is continuously throwing bushels of money at vendors for new & better razors, soaps & brushes. I know of three or more I have converted who are as happy as clams using sub $20 razors and have no plans to upgrade. They view shaving as a job and not some Bacchanalian morning "orgy".

Sell to the masses and you'll eat with the classes.

We have customers that bought our kit and only use that and replenish our soap. That’s it.


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As CaD314 points out, the knock offs destroy innovation.  If you take away the opportunity for the innovator to get a fair return on their investment what incentive is there to do it?  The cost of bringing intellectual property rights enforcement lawsuits is high and just can't be justified for a low margin small market item like a razor an you're still going to have the things coming in.  Its easy to blame Chinese or Russian companies but usually those companies are just filling a contract  - a North American, maybe your competitor or even your neighbour brings one of your razors over to China and meets with a few factory owners and asks if they can make the thing for $.xx a unit.  Their labour is skilled and they can do pretty much anything you want - when stuff comes out of there looking cheap its because the people that ordered wanted a specific (low) price point so its cheap in every way.  Higher quality will cost you more but they ca do it.  Sometimes the knock offs are coming out of the same factory that the actual item being knocked off is made.  Its business to the factory owners.  Money talks.  

So what do you do about it?  If we shrug our shoulders and buy the knock off because we want the razor but can't afford the legit version then we're going to guarantee that the innovators will go out of business or choose another business and we'll be left with a bunch of stagnating knockoffs to choose from.  I think it would be great if there was some IP law reform that made it easier and cheaper for the little guys to enforce their rights.  From where I stand, I just make the choice not to buy knock offs.

Something tells me many vendors wish there was such thing as patent pending worldwide

Copyright in China literally translates to, "We have the right to copy any and all of your shit."

It seems every year it is getting worse. US companies tried to get in the E-Cig market and everything they created China cloned and selling it 50% cheaper pretty much killed the US companies.

I was having a conversation with a client of ours about guitar amps and this guy showed us basically a underground website of China products and he was showing these amps that look exactly like the official brand amp at half the cost. What was interesting the Amp was not cheaply made so he was just going through the pages and that is when I saw these DE razors.

One razor looks like a ATT SE with a weird bambo handle design it was stainless steel and the manufacturing process was CNC. The 2nd razor I cannot pinpoint it, but it looks like a BBS-1 or a Timless the photo was fuzzy and they were prototypes it was ridiculous and both had a release time of end of 2018.

I have no idea what the website was all I know he had to log into it and it look like a catalog so there was no headers or titles.

People on Internet forums tend to see things through the "lens" of such forums. Not everyone who reads these forums posts and not everyone who has converted to DE/SE wet shaving is continuously throwing bushels of money at vendors for new & better razors, soaps & brushes. I know of three or more I have converted who are as happy as clams using sub $20 razors and have no plans to upgrade. They view shaving as a job and not some Bacchanalian morning "orgy".

Sell to the masses and you'll eat with the classes.

You say that like its a bad thing Kidding, what you say is true which is why its such a tough business - if each shaver buys a $20 razor once and a couple tubs of soap a year plus a bottle of aftershave those artisans aren't getting rich.

On the subject of world wide patent protection there is a Patent Cooperation Treaty among most countries around the world that helps streamline the process of applying for patents in every jurisdiction you want protection. Problem is that most razors probably wouldn't be patentable - the inventor needs to have some novel feature to qualify for a patent. Trademark and copyright protection of designs and the common law remedy for passing off would be more applicable but still expensive, labour intensive and not a slam dunk - there is really very little good news in terms of legal rights and protection so it does really boil down to buyers being informed and making the right choices.

People on Internet forums tend to see things through the "lens" of such forums. Not everyone who reads these forums posts and not everyone who has converted to DE/SE wet shaving is continuously throwing bushels of money at vendors for new & better razors, soaps & brushes. I know of three or more I have converted who are as happy as clams using sub $20 razors and have no plans to upgrade. They view shaving as a job and not some Bacchanalian morning "orgy".

Sell to the masses and you'll eat with the classes.

You say that like its a bad thing   Kidding, what you say is true which is why its such a tough business - if each shaver buys a $20 razor once and a couple tubs of soap a year plus a bottle of aftershave those artisans aren't getting rich.

On the subject of world wide patent protection there is a Patent Cooperation Treaty among most countries around the world that helps streamline the process of applying for patents in every jurisdiction you want protection.  Problem is that most razors probably wouldn't be patentable - the inventor needs to have some novel feature to qualify for a patent.  Trademark and copyright protection of designs and the common law remedy for passing off would be more applicable but still expensive, labour intensive and not a slam dunk - there is really very little good news in terms of legal rights and protection so it does really boil down to buyers being informed and making the right choices.

Honestly, patents are jokes, a false sense of security. As long as the other company can out spend you in court, he wins. The world we live in. lol

People on Internet forums tend to see things through the "lens" of such forums. Not everyone who reads these forums posts and not everyone who has converted to DE/SE wet shaving is continuously throwing bushels of money at vendors for new & better razors, soaps & brushes. I know of three or more I have converted who are as happy as clams using sub $20 razors and have no plans to upgrade. They view shaving as a job and not some Bacchanalian morning "orgy".

Sell to the masses and you'll eat with the classes.

You say that like its a bad thing   Kidding, what you say is true which is why its such a tough business - if each shaver buys a $20 razor once and a couple tubs of soap a year plus a bottle of aftershave those artisans aren't getting rich.

On the subject of world wide patent protection there is a Patent Cooperation Treaty among most countries around the world that helps streamline the process of applying for patents in every jurisdiction you want protection.  Problem is that most razors probably wouldn't be patentable - the inventor needs to have some novel feature to qualify for a patent.  Trademark and copyright protection of designs and the common law remedy for passing off would be more applicable but still expensive, labour intensive and not a slam dunk - there is really very little good news in terms of legal rights and protection so it does really boil down to buyers being informed and making the right choices.

Honestly, patents are jokes, a false sense of security. As long as the other company can out spend you in court, he wins. The world we live in. lol

I agree. For small to medium players it really provides no practical protection. People seem to think that there are patent police who go around enforcing patents. There aren't, its a purely self help and self funded process. Its a lot of time and money to prepare and prosecute a patent application and it has to be done in each country you want to sell your product (or stop others from ripping you off) and at the end of the day all you really get is some ego gratification for the inventor who can say he has patents - the fact that its infringed with impunity is another matter. It really is a problem because innovation drives the economy and future progress and the inability to adequately protect IP is a major obstacle.

Bacchanalian morning "orgy"

That is awesome!