I know a bit about IP so can put in a little bit of info, FWIW.
One of the first things the patent office looks for is NOVELTY. They try to scan the "prior art", which means they scan the industry and look for other work that resembles the patent application. If they find your invention from someone else, they will deny your application.
The FIRST TO INVENT is the true inventor. This may not necessarily be the FIRST TO PATENT. This is important. While a patent is presumed valid by the courts, sometimes they are overturned because examiners aren't perfect and may miss prior art. If someone else came up with your idea first, your patent can be invalidated.
The patent office also looks for a lack of obviousness. Simple modifications to an existing invention, which fail to create a novel improvement, or create improvements that would be obvious to others in the field, should not be sufficient for a new patent.
It takes a whole lot of time, energy, and money to develop new IP. On top of it, these guys have built their own manufacturing plant around their invention so it's USA made. I'm still on the waiting list myself, but it seems everyone loves the Cloud. I think we should all support any valid IP they have developed in the process...
... and may they return a big profit for their efforts, the American way.
We are not looking to go after anybody, as GreyArea mentioned, it takes a lot of time, energy, and effort to not only develop IP, but to go after someone as well. We simply ask that if folks want to make HydraTubes, they contact us and we work together. We're not asking anyone to give us money, charge licensing fees, etc etc.
Personally I think it kinda sucks and is a disappointing move from a grassroots company if they clamp down on this. Accepting that VX perhaps were one of the first companies to identify this method, I think it was inevitable that this kind of waterpipe design was also coming about elsewhere in the vaporizer market. This kind of in line diffusion isn't a stroke of genius- it's obvious for vaporizers. To even try and restrict its use is not a vaporist friendly move IMHO as so many models of vape can use this design.
I had to think long and hard as to how or if I should even answer a statement like this. I know all the people on this forum have a certain perception of the VapeXhale team being a homegrown product of Fuck Combustion. We like to do the right thing, we like to give the customer every benefit of the doubt when it comes to returns and exchanges, BUT also understand, this is how we FEED our families.
You're basically telling us that we are the bad guys for wanting to protect what we created. That after spending well into the mid 6 figures to develop what we believe to be the pinnacle of vaporization technology, we should not be protective of our intellectual property. Not only that, you basically said that this design was so obvious that someone was bound to come up with it. It has been 15 years since I started vaping and I have yet to see another vaporizer company come out with anything remotely similar to the Cloud.
If you guys think we are some greedy, rich folk, you guys need to think again. We poured our blood, sweat, tears, and money into this project and put up with countless armchair quarterbacks about how we should run our business. Many of us are working without a paycheck, some for close to 12 months now. To say we are the "bad guys" for wanting to defend our intellectual property is a slap in the face to us.
FWIW, ClearDomes, or the bubblers made for the Aromazap do not apply to our patent. Neither does the Aqua Vape. These do not have GonG connections, or some of them use tubing, so neither of those apply.
Again - there may have been some things that looked similar to what we have done, but no one has put it together in the manner that we have. We felt our idea was novel, we had some IP researchers do their due diligence, and found that no one had patented anything like this before. If we are looked at as the "evil corporation" just because we did what any careful business person would do, then that just plain sucks for us. For a company that is 6 figures in the red to be the "evil corporation" - then I must have a messed up view of how this world works.
If this is how you fed your family, would you still feel the same way? Or would you just let three years of hard work go to whoever wanted to make money off of your idea?
