We often hear from people that without "legal protections" what could they possibly do to stop others from copying them? Of course, "copying" can be loosely defined, and there are times when it's just multiple people coming up with the same basic idea at the same time, and in those cases it seems only fair to just let people compete. But what about a situation of incredibly obvious, blatant copying? Do you need laws? Or can social norms cover the situation? It seems that one small company facing that situation has decided to take the high road and not resort to legal tactics, but instead use social shaming in just such a situation where the copying isn't only obvious, but egregious.

For reasons that I don't fully understand, one of the most popular categories of products that have been successful on Kickstarter is high quality metallic pens. There are tons. But one of the first really, really successful ones was Pen Type-A, a minimal stainless steel case for the popular Hi-Tec-C pens, created by CW&T. Among the distinct features of the pen was the rectangular stainless steel case with a ruler on the side that it came in. The Kickstarter project raised $281,990 -- a bit more than the $2,500 they shot for. What happened next is covered in a detailed and well-documented-with-images explanation from Notcot. Needing a good manufacturing partner to handle the much larger than expected orders, CW&T partnered with a guy named Allen Arseneau, a Stanford MBA, who was representing JOIGA, a company that claimed to provide manufacturing capabilities in China. Allen and his partner, Diana Hudak, started helping CW&T, and CW&T even mentioned Allen and Diana in some of their updates to Kickstarter backers -- and showed the two of them in some of the photos they posted. Many of those updates highlighted that CW&T were working hard to fulfill all their orders, but that they weren't coming quite fast enough.

And then... earlier this week, popular site Fab.com announced a sale on something called the Torr Classic... a pen that looks remarkably like the Pen Type-A. Remarkably. Lots of people started wondering if it was the same pen, and even asked CW&T, who were taken by surprise by the whole thing. When they looked at Torr Pens' website... they noticed that it wasn't just the pens that looked familiar. The "CEO & COO" of the company... were the very same Allen and Diana who had recently been working right besides CW&T folks to get the pens ready. Back to Notcot for the illustrated version: Yup, the same folks who had supposedly been in charge of helping them get their own pens, and who had been working with them to ship the pens: Over at the Notcot link there are a lot more photos of Allen helping out with the pens. And it's clearly the same guy whose face is plastered all over the Torr pens site, including in a horrifically done James Bond parody video "commercial" for the pens.

Now, for CW&T, this is clearly a pretty horrible situation. The "partner" that they were working with to help them manufacture the pens that everyone had bought had apparently started his own company to make nearly identical pens... and did this while still waiting for the full order of original pens to come in. CW&T responded by just telling the world what had happened: In response, many Pen Type-A supporters quickly came out in support of CW&T and against Torr Pens. Fab.com pulled down their sale, and other sites started to pick up on the story. I don't know if CW&T have any legal recourse, or if they should even bother, but they realized that just by talking about the situation with the large group of fans they had connected with, they could have an effective response.

Oh, and they've also found a new manufacturing partner, here in the US: Stories like this are certainly not a fun situation for CW&T, but it seems like their time going forward will probably be well spent continuing to make awesome products and connecting with fans who want them. Who knows what happens to Torr Pens and its "execs" but the story behind them is now out and I can't imagine they'll be able to create the same sort of love and appreciation for their products from fans as CW&T has done.

The jury in the Samsung/Apple patent fight took nearly everyone by surprise by rushing through its job and finishing it way, way, way before anyone expected. They didn't even ask any questions and with about 700 questions to answer, they breezed through it in no time. It was not a total victory for Apple (apparently the design patent on rounded-edge rectangles wasn't infringed), but it was pretty close. In the end, Samsung was found to infringe an awful lot of things (and sometimes willfully) and the the final bill is a stunning $1.05 billion owed to Apple. There's still a lot to sort through in the details, but this is a massive victory for Apple. Of course, Samsung has probably already written up its appeal (or will ask the judge to set the jury verdict aside or something), so this case is likely to be around for many years, but yet again we see just how ridiculous patent law can be. What the hell is wrong with competing in the marketplace? If Apple thinks Samsungs' phones and tablets are too similar? Well, keep on innovating. It's called competition, and now we'll have less of it...

Minor update: After the rush, the judge came back to point out two problems with the verdict -- including the jury awarding damages in cases where it had not found infringement. While this will be corrected and won't change the results much, it certainly suggests that the jury rushed through this and may not have taken this particularly seriously. When you start talking about the numbers being thrown around in damages here, at some point, it must start to feel like play money. But it's a pretty big indictment of the jury itself that it would make a mistake like this. It raises significant questions about how careful they were in getting to a verdict vs. how quickly they wanted to be done in time for the weekend.