Patent Postie . . .

Happy New Year to everyone.

It promises to be a good year in Pegland and I am very much looking forward to telling you lots of stories!! This story is about my first postal delivery of 2007.

Here in my part of the world, our postie rides a 90cc Honda motorcycle and drops our mail in the mailbox which is outside on the street rather than into the letterbox in the door like they do in UK. Parcels don't fit into the mailbox though, they get delivered to my door by a big postie van, so all the other people in the units nearby are jealous because I've got a parcel ... te he.

Well, with the first delivery of the New Year I received a packet of pegs. They arrived from America (no fancy stamps unfortunately, just one of those label things) in a very large box due to masses of protective bubblewrap. They were the white/light blue pegs at the bottom of the photo and were manufactured in China.

These particular soft grip pegs are of great interest to me because I am fascinated by the way people, over the years, have redesigned the clothes peg to get round the problem of patent infringement.

The pegs in this photo illustrate my point. Look at the dark blue peg. This is a French design, which I understand was patented by a firm called "Zebra" in January 2005. With its soft grip, which is not supposed to spoil your delicate clothes, it commands a higher price and has apparently gained about 8% of the world market in clothes pegs. That is an amazing level of sales, so it is no surprise that other enterprising manufacturers and designers have jumped on the bandwagon and there are at least half a dozen other pegs around which are extreeeeeeeeemely similar to the original French one. The French one is expensive when compared to regular clothes pegs ... would you pay more for that soft grip?

Have a look at the others in my photo. Subtle differences are there but are they enough to beat the patent? Most of them are made in China. Is this because the Chinese are imitating the French or because other global designers are asking the Chinese to manufacture them? Will the patents be tested in court? What is the cost of defending a patent? Perhaps someone with greater knowledge of patents will tell me but in the meantime, I leave you with my photos.