Chatterbait Lawsuit?

Anyone hear about chatterbait, or whomever owns them, filing a lawsuit against any company that put a blade on the front of their baits? I just left LFT and Ernie said something about it.

I use to buy mine from a company called karu lures and they took their version off the web site several months ago because of the lawsuit

Never heard of it....the original chatterbait sucks....the shank on the hook is too short....miss too man fish...So Im glad there are more options

If they are worried about the blade in front of the bait then maybe they should take a step back and look who invented the blade that goes in front of a bait first. Pretty sure the Eaker Shaker came out well before Chatterbait decided to put a blade in front of thier jig. I wanna say Eagle Claw was the one that came out with this idea first.

Isnt Z MAN the company filing the lawsuit?

I heard talk at the Tackle Show. So many things have been copied. I don't know how they can do anything. I know one of the better ones was made by Gambler and I think they have quit. The Phenix one is similar to it.

this is like year old news bc z man patented their design. now anyone who builds one similar is supposed to pay royalties.

Whether it's legit or not, the average patent lawsuit costs between $500K and $2 million for each party.

Right or wrong, the legal fees alone could put most small bait companies out of business and sadly, that's how a lot of companies are choosing to deal with their competition.

In these lawsuits its not about who made it first but who wound up getting the patent on it. If the same product was successfully marketed prior to the patent being issued, you might be able to challenge the legitimacy of the patent, but that is just speculation on my part. Need to get inf from a legal weenie on that part, but usually if you have some money and a willing lawyer you can challenge anything.

Doesn't matter. If there is no patent on it, anyone can make it and sell it. Check the packaging for a patent #. Patenting cost so much that even the big tackle manufacturers don't bother with it.

Can Zman afford the lawsuit to even win it? I know some people are waiting to see how this goes before moving on. Heck you can buy the components to build one through Barlows. Is this considered copyright infringement? The thing to do is build a jig for it and have you customers order them from this supply house.
http://www.barlowstackle.com/Shakee-Blades-C110.aspx

This is the problem alot of stuff has been copied but they have to do something like this. Everyone coppied strike kings sexy shad color but they didn't get mad and get a patent. Bisides it's been coppied and perfected by other companies and their elaztech stuff is [censored].

I catch the crud out of them on the original. Might have to cry if they DC it.

There are knockoff kings everywhere in the fishing lure business.

http://bassfan.com/docktalk.asp?id=7319

they were granted the patent last summer ^

Does this even affect any of the knockoffs? All they have to change is one little thing right? Or is it the metal blade attached to the front of a jig that emcompasses the whole design?

Go to Google patents and look for:

7627978

7726062

Here is the last one
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7726062.html
Ivan

ZMan did Get a Patent and this is the second time they have talked about filing a suit. Seems most companies don't care this time, because there are companies around to fight it that are bigger than Zman. There product is [censored] as far as I am concerned. Funny that instead of trying to improve their product they would rather threaten those that build better ones.

All need be done is a certain percentage of change. I figured out how to attach a blade to the hook eye on a LFT tungsten jig. I think they could patent this process but might be pizzing up a rope on the rest.

FYI Chartreuse Shad was first and it was Lucky Craft.

It sucks being knocked off and I don't blame z man for going after people if they have the money to do it. Zman is a pretty good size
Worldwide company and the chatterbaits is a drop in the bucket to their product list. I have talked to the V.P. on the phone about the patent and he was pretty serious about infringement on the blade design and also the way it attaches to the jig. I gave him my two cents on what we would change to the bait to make it better. We suggested a larger longer Shanked hook and a keeper to start. I don't think they will ever have it tied but those two things alone would be huge!

Trying to patent his [censored] is wrong. Sorry but I got to see most of the paperwork last time when the patent was just pending. It was ammended to try to knock all other baits out of the market. Not to protect theirs. The patenet app was ammended after other bait companies developed new blade styles and ways to attach them.

He came up with nothing, Guy Eaker came up with the idea.

Sorry, the way the whole thing has went down is petty and there is no way I would use ZMAN's junk now no matter what.
The companies he has chosen to threaten are too small to fight. they have more than a twenty percent change and would win in court if they could afford a patent attourney and ZMAN knows it.