[anersimyra]

I bought one of those grips for my K7 from the 'linkdelight' store.

The quality - as in, the fit and finish - is pretty outstanding. The only things that give it away (as a knockoff) are the material on the thumbwheels and perhaps the buttons, if you look closely.

Unfortunately the unit I received had two problems with it :

- A small piece of metal was missing from the AA tray, preventing it from working. One I realised it was missing, I made a temporary repair, and the AA tray worked fine.

- The grip did not seem to 'see' a lithium battery, even a 100% freshly charged one. At first I thought that the grip just wasn't designed to work without a battery in the body, but then after a few days the camera suddenly became aware of a grip battery.
It was very erratic and seemed to go from reading the grip battery as 'full' to 'empty' in just a few minutes, though mostly it just would not 'see' a battery at all. Obviously a problem.

I contacted the seller and described the problem and all my troubleshooting steps, and they seemed concerned and responded quickly. I've sent it back to them and they will hopefully send me a new one.

Also worth noting : the SD card holder in the lithium tray is very tight. I struggled with mine for 5 minutes, trying to pull out a SD card. Eventually I just half-inserted it, which held it securely enough, and could actually be removed.

Summary - A great grip, though mine had some problems which are being addressed by the seller.

Hi i have the same batteryproblem whith my new grip.It also exposes at the same time as the lights glows in the viewfinder,meaning,you cant press the releasbutton halfway to autofocus without releasing the shutter.Please write back and tell mi if your problem is solved.MVH Anders Vilhelmsson

[knoxploration]

Main Entry: 1coun·ter·feit
Pronunciation: \ˈkau̇nt-ər-ˌfit\
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English countrefet, from Anglo-French ****refeit, from past participle of ****refere, contrefaire to imitate, from ****re- + faire to make, from Latin facere — more at do
Date: 14th century

1 : made in imitation of something else with intent to deceive


This grip is not sold as a 'genuine Pentax' grip. No deceit, no problem

Rubbish, and you don't honestly believe that yourself. The arbiter of law is not the specific dictionary you chose to try and back up your argument, but the legal system.

I even am using a Pentacon (praktica) lens with a M42-K adapter. I guess that is also stealing in you're opinion hahahahhahahahahaha

Oh, and a remote control form JueYing and not Pentax, and a wriststrap from an other than Pentax.

If you like it or not, it is totally legal to manufacture equipment for other brands than you're own. That is called "free market" And free market is what keeps the world goes 'round.

Oh, and by the way, i own a blue T-shirt, looks just like a Nike T-shirt without the Nike logo.
Should i be afraid to get arrested when i walk oudside wearing that T-shirt?

Coming to think of it, i must admit, i am in fact really a hardened criminal, i even have Nike shoes with 3rd-party shoelaces because the original shoelaces broke.

Oh goodie, another poster being obtuse and carefully pretending not to understand the distinction so they can feel better about themself.

In every single one of your examples above, the item in question is not a 100% identical copy, but rather a third-party item created as the result of the third party's own development work.

In the case of this grip, it is 100% unquestionably a direct copy, down to the placement of every last screw. They did no work, they simply stole somebody else's design.

I'm pretty sure you wouldn't be happy if your own work was stolen. You're presumably a photographer, so consider this. Would you be happy if I took your image and sold it for 1/4 of your own asking price, keeping the profit for myself? After all, you still have the original copy of your image, so you "lost nothing". I made the image with my own printer, and it's 100% identical in the placement of every last dot of ink to the image you'd have printed. The fact that somebody bought my image which took me no work to make *must* just mean you're charging to much, right?

There's absolutely no difference here.

[Timichango]

At a certain point this becomes an ideological/political/whatever discussion about intellectual property and it's pros and cons; ultimately, everyone's got a different opinion about where intellectual property should begin and end, and that'll never get reconciled on a forum, of all places.

[begin rant]
For me personally, there's a huge gulf between legality and ethicality; I don't actually believe that they're concepts on the same spectrum. Ethics are personal, legality is the enforceable results of a lowest-common-denominator haggling system over behavioural constraint and privilege. Sometimes they coincide, but that's far from a universal phenomenon.

The simple truth is this: business 'A' will always try to outmaneuver business 'B' in some capacity. Legality determines what maneuvers are acceptable within the context of the operation of the businesses, and if one of the businesses breaks the rules, the other presumably has recourse through the legal system. If the rule-infringing business is not actionable through the legal system, then either more haggling ensues, or the infringing business increases it's market share. Ad Nauseam. Every individual is going to have differing opinions on which rules are ethical, and which are not, and business will always attempt to break whatever rules they can get away with, so long as financial profitability is the sole guiding principle that is used to evaluate success.

Personally, electronics companies screwing each other over via patent infringement isn't what keeps me up at night... I'm far more concerned about the crap that pharmaceutical, agricultrural, and energy companies pull to make a buck... that stuff actually affects important necessary-for-life stuff in some way. If buying a cheap battery grip that I'm only going to use casually saves me $175 bucks that I can give to a local environmental organization/spend at local organic food co-op/invest in my garden, then, to my mind, that's money better spent. But hey, that's just me—make your own choice

And for the record, I don't own a battery grip from any manufacture, but if I buy one, it ain't going to be the official one, unless it gets less expensive... it's just not worth the price for me personally.
[end rant]

[simico]

In the case of this grip, it is 100% unquestionably a direct copy, down to the placement of every last screw. They did no work, they simply stole somebody else's design.

So all they have to do is just place 2 screws at a different place and maybe use pink ink for the button texts and then it suddenly becomes a legal product, right?

By the way, where is the Pentax grip being manufactured? In China?

[falconeye]

sorry to say, but you're an idiot.

Thank you for now having completed your profile

[falconeye]

So all they have to do is just place 2 screws at a different place and maybe use pink ink for the button texts and then it suddenly becomes a legal product, right?

As I have explained (several times now...) it depends on the registered Japanese Utility Model (or Industrial Design Right) application. A query of the Japanese Utility Model database is about $25.

In essence, you can copy a product if it doesn't look and feel like a ripp off. 2 screws and a different label don't suffice. But to change the outer dimensions by more than 10% from the original ones would probably suffice (and leaving out the 6 AA battery option if this is registered in the grip's Utlity Model).

The Japanese Utility Model registry is crafted after the German Gebrauchsmusterschutz Registry. It is like a patent registry except that it suffices to file a couple of images and/or drawings to get it protected for a small fee. There is also no check for prior art (but Utility Models can be deleted) and the validity is typically 5 years only but can be extended.

Here are two examples of local German Geschmacksmusterschutz registrations by Pentax Germany, a variant of the Industrial Design Right:


(The last one is the Pentax cleaning kit)

[Sakura]

So all they have to do is just place 2 screws at a different place and maybe use pink ink for the button texts and then it suddenly becomes a legal product, right?

By the way, where is the Pentax grip being manufactured? In China?

There is a lack of weather-sealing, so it isn't a 1 on 1 copy anyway.

But Pentax can very easy kill all the 3rd-party grips world wide by putting a normal profit on there grip and not a 1000% profit.

As i wrote before, the best way to make a lot of money is small profit per item, large numbers of items.

Philips had the same issue in the past with there first electric iron. No one would buy it because it was way to expensive. There stock kept piling up. Than one of the sales managers said they had to lower there profits per sold item so they only would make a very small amount of money per item.
Everybody tought he was totally crazy, but after a while and even more build-up of stock, they finally lowered there price.
Till the present day, it is still the most single sold item in the long history of Philips.

I am really convinced, that if Pentax would offer there grip for a normal price, they would have trouble keeping there production high enough for the market.

And as said before, not buying isn't steeling. There is a huge market for grips and if Pentax won't respond, it is the free market that jumps in and will deliver.

And to stick with the case of the photogapher who would try to sell pictures but won't sell because of counterfeight, well he should start with looking at the market and what its potential custumers are.
If i make a nice picture and want to sell it for way to much money, and because of that woudn't sell any picture, well, it would totally be my fault because i didn't inspect the market to find out who my potential custumers would be.
There is a market for low quality posters, (the 15 year old boy who want a poster on the wall of its bedroom), a market for high quality posters (the people who want a very nice quality poster above the couch in there livingroom) and a market for huge billboards. If you direct you're attention with the wrong product to one of those markets, then you can only blaim you're self. If i only offer very high quality posters, no way the 15 year old boy will buy one. And if i only offer low quality posters, no way someone will hang it on the wall above there couch.
It all comes in inspecting the market before you start. Something Pentax absolutely failed to do properly.

And to say again, not buying a product is no stealing.

But there are also some topics on this forum about 3rd party remotes. 3rd-party focus screens, 3rd-party battery's, and so on.
I hope you won't start in those topics eather with this absolutely nonsense postings of stealing from Pentax because you aren't buying from Pentax.

And this is my final comment on this total waist of time nonsense. I won't respond whatsoever on any postings about this issue. I can spend my time better than this waist of time.
If you wan't to continue with this nonsense, go to a law forum, or a patent forum or whatever forum, or take a plain and fly to China or Hong Kong and start complaning overthere, but please keep out of this forum.

This is a forum to talk about photography and to exchange tips and questions about photograpy for people who love photograpy.

---

Last edited by Sakura; 04-08-2010 at 08:59 AM.

[knoxploration]

And as said before, not buying isn't steeling. There is a huge market for grips and if Pentax won't respond, it is the free market that jumps in and will deliver.

GOOD NEWS EVERYBODY! SAKURA'S PHOTOGRAPHS ARE NOW FREE OF CHARGE!

Do whatever you like with them. Print them for personal use. Sell them to somebody else for use in an advertising campaign. He's indicated that his personal belief is that it is not stealing to buy something that's a 100% identical copy made by an unauthorized third party, rather than from the person who created it.

Thanks, Sakura! I'm sure we'll all enjoy getting rich off your hard work.

Hope you don't get upset at us. It's your fault, after all - if you don't like it you should've dropped your prices.



/newsflash - you don't get to decide what others discuss on this or any other forum - just what you choose to reply to.

[Mister Guy]

Falconeye,

While I understand the point you're trying to make, you need to be aware of national borders. The laws you're citing are complicated at best and depend extremely heavily on where you're standing. In the US, for example, I'm inclined to think these are explicitly legal because the design features you're referencing aren't protected. The very argument you're making prevents them from being covered by trademark. They are visible design features that are necessary for practical use of the product. In other words, US law prevents you from protecting design features that are necessary for the use of the product. You can't prevent someone from putting plugs, screws, and padding in the same location of a product designed for the same use. The very nature of making it compatible with a specific model of camera for human hands gives them protection.

However, in the EU, a different interpretation of the law takes precedence. It'd be a messy legal battle, at any rate. The most important thing to remember is that US law and EU law are based on different concepts. That's why we keep having these fights with lawmakers to try and prevent US laws from being molded into more like EU law. In the EU, generally speaking, businesses have their "right" to conduct business protected. In the US, you generally have a "right" to compete.

In the EU, getting there first is often a valid defense of your invention. In the US, your defense can be thrown out for not being protected sufficiently, for your invention being overly obvious or necessary, or for any number of other factors. That's pretty much why we have huge legal battles raging over whether you can patent gene therapy, because those ideals conflict so strongly.

[Timichango]

Mister Guy pretty much hit the nail on the head.

In addition, while I don't debate the fact that the Deal Extreme grip is probably a direct knock-off of the Pentax Grip (it certainly looks exactly like it, cosmetically), in a fundamental sense it's got some pretty big differences.

Deal Extreme grip: Cheap grip, not weather-sealed, questionable reliability & longevity, and inconvenient or non-existant warranty support, very little or zero re-sale value, and the alienation of any recourse whatsoever if the grip frys your camera somehow.

Pentax Grip: Expensive grip, weather sealed, (presumably) good reliability & longevity, network of warranty support, decent re-sale value, broad availability, and if it kills your camera you can probably legitimately yell at someone.

While the grips seem quite similar in construction and cosmetics, those descriptions illustrate that they're fundamentally different products. Who's to say that there isn't/shouldn't be a market for both? If the market wants cheap products of dubious quality, then, frankly, that's what the market should get, according to standard free-market ideology.

The issue of the costs associated with the design & engineering for the official grip has been raised a few times; frankly, I just don't buy it... this product is an iteration on previous products, and even if you envision a 4-month long project with 3 people working full-time (an industrial designer, an electrical engineer, and a project manager), each making $100,000/year, the supposed design costs are still about $100,000. In the grand scheme of product development, this is astronomically low: Pentax would only need to sell 300-400 grips to pay off the design process. On top of this, I'm hugely skeptical that more than a few weeks went into the grip - as I said, it's a straightforward product, with functional precedent in previous products, and ergonomic precedent that stems from the camera itself; there's simply not that much to actually design given how derivative the product is. Some sketches, sculpts, 3-D models or rapid prototypes, and the product is designed, for all intents and purposes.

On the actual manufacturing side of things, we're talking about an injection-molded part with some cheap electronics and some rubber or silicone gaskets. While the tooling costs here are a bit high (mold making can be pricey), we're not talking large volume - so probably a 1 or 2 cavity mold for each piece of the grip at most, running on a small injection molding machine. The costs for Pentax to tool up for this fabrication would be the same as whoever was making the knockoff (if it's not the exact same facility), so it's not like Pentax is the only party investing capital here, while for the company producing the knockoff, it's all gravy.

Relative to the tooling costs, the design costs for this type of product are likely insignificant.

[Mister Guy]

Mister Guy pretty much hit the nail on the head.

In addition, while I don't debate the fact that the Deal Extreme grip is probably a direct knock-off of the Pentax Grip (it certainly looks exactly like it, cosmetically), in a fundamental sense it's got some pretty big differences.

Deal Extreme grip: Cheap grip, not weather-sealed, questionable reliability & longevity, and inconvenient or non-existant warranty support, very little or zero re-sale value, and the alienation of any recourse whatsoever if the grip frys your camera somehow.

Pentax Grip: Expensive grip, weather sealed, (presumably) good reliability & longevity, network of warranty support, decent re-sale value, broad availability, and if it kills your camera you can probably legitimately yell at someone.

While the grips seem quite similar in construction and cosmetics, those descriptions illustrate that they're fundamentally different products. Who's to say that there isn't/shouldn't be a market for both? If the market wants cheap products of dubious quality, then, frankly, that's what the market should get, according to standard free-market ideology.

The issue of the costs associated with the design & engineering for the official grip has been raised a few times; frankly, I just don't buy it... this product is an iteration on previous products, and even if you envision a 4-month long project with 3 people working full-time (an industrial designer, an electrical engineer, and a project manager), each making $100,000/year, the supposed design costs are still about $100,000. In the grand scheme of product development, this is astronomically low: Pentax would only need to sell 300-400 grips to pay off the design process. On top of this, I'm hugely skeptical that more than a few weeks went into the grip - as I said, it's a straightforward product, with functional precedent in previous products, and ergonomic precedent that stems from the camera itself; there's simply not that much to actually design given how derivative the product is. Some sketches, sculpts, 3-D models or rapid prototypes, and the product is designed, for all intents and purposes.

On the actual manufacturing side of things, we're talking about an injection-molded part with some cheap electronics and some rubber or silicone gaskets. While the tooling costs here are a bit high (mold making can be pricey), we're not talking large volume - so probably a 1 or 2 cavity mold for each piece of the grip at most, running on a small injection molding machine. The costs for Pentax to tool up for this fabrication would be the same as whoever was making the knockoff (if it's not the exact same facility), so it's not like Pentax is the only party investing capital here, while for the company producing the knockoff, it's all gravy.

Relative to the tooling costs, the design costs for this type of product are likely insignificant.

Added to that, when you factor in what's physically missing, you'll come up with a list of parts that aren't strictly determined by either technical demands or ergonomics. Particularly, the extra cushioning, extra rubber gaskets, and extra weather sealing. They took the parts that are strictly a QUALITY concerned, and didn't add them. In the US, that's usually considered legitimate reverse engineering.

[falconeye]

Falconeye,

While I understand the point you're trying to make, you need to be aware of national borders.

You are making a very good post. Thanks.

Initially, I replied to the original posting which was about an offering made by a German online store. German legislation applies. So, I felt I should mention that the grip as posted is illegal. Pentax Germany will take care of this anyway, I assume.

Then, I was challenged by a friendly forum member and I went into more detail.

You're right, the situation will depend on every market and the precise rights Pentax registered with them (like Utility Model or Industrial Design Right or Design Patent or none at all if they didn't do their homework).

I will not spend the money to query Pentax rights for several markets in detail

You're right, the US doesn't follow the tradition of Utility Model registrations but it does know so-called design patents. A grip which innovates the option to replace one LiOn battery by 6 AA NiMH batteries has good chances to be well protected. But it isn't my task to find out.


I'll follow a suggestion that probably everything was said about the legal side. I'll refrain from posting more on this except if somebody clarifies the exact legal situation to me.

[HGMonaro]

falconeye, guess we assumed you were talking about the world, not just Germany.

What is the situation in Germany for car parts? In this country you can buy non-OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) replacement 'widgets' for just about any car that is sold. Many of those parts are identical... they have to be to fit. Is that not possible there?

[creampuff]

GOOD NEWS EVERYBODY! SAKURA'S PHOTOGRAPHS ARE NOW FREE OF CHARGE!

Do whatever you like with them. Print them for personal use. Sell them to somebody else for use in an advertising campaign. He's indicated that his personal belief is that it is not stealing to buy something that's a 100% identical copy made by an unauthorized third party, rather than from the person who created it.

Thanks, Sakura! I'm sure we'll all enjoy getting rich off your hard work.

Hope you don't get upset at us. It's your fault, after all - if you don't like it you should've dropped your prices.



/newsflash - you don't get to decide what others discuss on this or any other forum - just what you choose to reply to.

Not defending Sakura but what's with the "shouting" and personal attack?
FYI unless you've explicitly registered your images, your images and that of everyone else's that are posted online risk be leeched by others, so no need for the childish histrionics on this forum.

I take the view that how others want to spend their money (regardless of the item's originality or authenticity) is their own business. So no need to preach about whether it illegal or contravenes the law or whatever. It's their personal choice.
There's a lot of 3rd party stuff nowadays, everything from car parts to printer inks. Who are we to say what you and I can buy. If there is any intellectual property infringement, let the lawyers handle it, no need to cloud up the issue here.
Something to ponder, why are people buying Induro/Benro or Giottos tripods or others which bear a very close resemblance to Gitzo. Could it be because Gitzo is quite a lot more expensive?

[simico]

You are making a very good post. Thanks.

Initially, I replied to the original posting which was about an offering made by a German online store. German legislation applies.

That would have been my next question, to ask you to tell the name of the EU rule or directive and maybe quote the part that backs up your statement about the DX grip being a counterfeit product Because I'm not aware of such EU rule/law or directive. So it looks like you were talking about a local german rule.