Hello to all:
As Bob Lum's widow, I am the owner of all his designs. I hope to always maintain the integrity and legacy of my late husband and his beautiful work.....of coarse I am very biased.
As for the SOG saber tip type folder, yes that looks like a Lum design....do you think I'm getting royalty checks? Fat chance...... and I would never do anything about it because that was not Bob's way, as many of you know.
But what comes around, goes around or whatever that saying is.
Jean
Its funny how SOG gave me a call a few years back about working with them . I had no interest is joining there teem and some how they have got a total copy of my work . It wouldn't be so bad if they at the least gave credit to the original designers but they act like there design teem did all the original designs for the new line up.
Im a little pissed off about this . They and many other people and companies rip off designs and profit from it and clam it theirs.
WT
So Spencer is claiming that all of the similarities just happen to be a coincidence. He must think we're a bunch of idiots. If this is the official stance of SOG, then they for certain have lost this customer for life. They've also lost anyone that I give knife recommendations to and they've lost anyone I can convince through the internet that they are liars and thieves and think incredibly low of the knife community in general. You've made a horrible decision Spencer and I'm sure with a concerted effort of the knife community, you'll feel it in your P&L statements in time.
Chris, if you didn't know it before, you know what type of person you're working for now. Ask yourself if you were working for Spyderco or even just a neutral customer, if you would buy Spencer's bs statement.
Spencer (our founder and Chief Designer) to get his thought on the matter. Here is his response.
You can be assured that we at SOG work hard to protect our trademark and intellectual properties, while at the same time working to respect the intellectual property of others.
when a design feature becomes popularized , others within the industry look to build upon this innovation.
A great example would be the hole in the blade that now is used by many companies- Did you know that this was originated by Scagel back in the 30s? Or the tanto blade shape made popular in many tactical designs, which originated in ancient Japanese styling and now commonplace for many knife companies?
Same as the point I made above. Nothing wroing with copying bits and pieces of other knives, but copying a WHOLE KNIFE is a blatant disgrace to SOG. If you look at the pictures posted the similarity between the knives is too similar to ignore.SOG saw our bowie style folders spread though the industry, and the same can be said for others innovations, like the lock back, the liner lock, the interframe, thumbstuds, the invent of multi-tools, kraton handles, clips on knives, etc.
SOG now seems like the biggest threat to knife innovation and the new designs speak poorly of SOGs innovation. If it did bother to innovate SOG would have used bits and pieces of the knives and not copy WHOLE knife designs shamelessly.On another note we are concerned with the threat to all of the legitimate knife companies and knife buying public with the blatant copy and counterfeiting of products. There are people out there who are exactly copying a product, brand name, logo, and even packaging. We have seen this in greater incidence and are actively combating each and every occurrence.
There's no need to get your panties in a bunch, guys. Just don't buy their stuff and I won't either. I was looking at a Trident but now am just going to get a Spydie Stretch instead.