beach wrote:Hello this is Ben from Revolution
Hello Ben
on the knock off deal each one I have gotten was just plain junk and most of them advertise is with some wording such as rev like kite, thats where I get upset.
No-one should have
any problem with you chasing down people who just Xerox™ the Rev. commercially. That's simply
wrong and not to be tolerated. Hopefully someone at Rev. checks out eBay at least daily and puts a stop to the crap masquerading as their product. I would have thought
this guy would be a prime target, as would
Current Chasing Kites that was linked to in the GWTW thread that (partially) kicked this thread off.
But that really isn't the crux of the matter we're babbling on about here.
I'll speak just for myself here: I can't be too impressed with how Revolution (the company) has behaved, even whilst recognising their legal right to do so, with regard to how they have historically seemed to utilise their patent on kite technology. I can fully understand how they don't want knock-offs and I can even extend this as far as pretty-damn-close designs (like the Powell
Double Diamond) but... (
you knew there was a "but", right ?) I think the overall effect has been to stifle and stagnate quadline kites
IN GENERAL to the detriment of kiters. I'm a kiter, not a businessman in the world of kites.
And I do think that this has also lead to a certain acceptance that it's somehow "OK" to make your own copies of Revs.Now it may be that these actions were necessary, I just don't know, but I am seeing this purely from a selfish aspect and I want new and interesting kites. And a constant stream of them too, please. Dualline kites, with no patent restrictions,
have moved on. It reads in the Hadzicki patent application:-
conventional prior art kites do not sufficiently challenge the kite flyer's skill and imagination. Well that
may have been the case once but there is more challenge in a present day duallie than there is in a Rev.
The "Rev." design has not largely altered in
20 years. I realise that you've made detail changes and employed new materials but it's been
development not
innovation. Fair comment ? There is the Speed Series but it's still pretty much the same fundamental flat-sail-with-a-cross-spar-and-uprights format. There are other ways to do this.
I know that quadliners are a conservative bunch
but is there really a future in simply finessing further and further the same design ? Revolution has at their disposal pretty much
every quadline display team and competitor flying their product (more or less....) and yet there seems little desire to innovate again, an acceptance that this is how it is, wait another two years for a new sail pattern.
I have read many of the posts on this forum but have not wanted to make waves here or upset any one
Hopefully Andy won't mind me inviting you to make waves and upset people here.
If we've got something wrong, put us right. We can probably handle the shock.
Mike.