Why I Refuse to Support Smart Parts

[jitspoe]

I felt I should write a detailed post to explain why I refuse to buy any Smart Parts products and possibly encourage others to boycott them as well.

At first I thought my distaste may have been unjustified, so I searched around a bit and what I found made me sick.  I'll give a brief history then post some links.

Smart Parts is basically, or at least started out as, the "All American" team, with Adam and Billy Gardner in charge.  A team sponsored by AGD (Airgun Designs).  AGD gave them a lot of support as they started building paintball products.  I believe their first product was the "All American Barrel", an Automag barrel with extensive spiral porting originally designed to "self clean", but when that failed to work, the Gardner brothers made ridiculous claims that it could extend the range by like 15 yards (there's actually a video of them saying that).  Supposedly the team member that designed the barrel got squat.  Next there's the "Magic Box" for the Automag.  This was basically just a small pipe inside of a black box (with a large price tag) that increased the volume and thus reduced the pressure.  In theory, the lower pressure, by magic, apparently, made the ball fly straighter.  In practice, it did nothing (though if used with CO2, you could tilt the gun sideways, and get a really hot shot, probably where the phrase "for cheaters by cheaters" was first coined).

Later, Smart Parts contracted with PVI (PneuVentures, Inc) to distribute PVI's shocker.  PVI ended up going bankrupt.  I'm not sure on the details.  One person said SP sued PVI for a contract violation and put them under, but I'm not sure if that's true.  All of the PVI property was put up for auction, including their Shocker patent, which Smart Parts snatched up.  Smart Parts then produced the Shocker under their name, then, with their extensive knowledge of loopholes in the patent system (one of the Gardners was already involved in a patent scam) managed to retroactively modify the patent, once made to cover a specific gun design, to cover the entire concept of using electronics in a pneumatic paintball gun or even create electronics for that purpose, I believe (now I understand why paintball electronics are so expensive).  This is something several other companies had already been doing for a while.  Once that patent was in place, Smart parts began suing pretty much every paintball company that made an electropneumatic paintball gun.

AKA (they made the Viking and Excalibur, which some players still swear by) refused to pay royalties and after facing like $500,000+ in legal fees, gave up and quit producing guns.

AGD (yes, SP went after the very company that helped them out when they were just starting) also stopped producing electronic guns.  They still produce the mechanical versions, but are effectively knocked off of the map in today's world of paintball.  Tom Kaye, the owner of AGD, was probably one of the single most innovative people in the sport.  He came up with things like using HPA, debunked a number of myths with detailed scientific tests, designed what I think is still the fastest cycling valve, and, ironically, I believe AGD was the first company to use electronic trigger frames.  Tom retired after all of this went down.

ICD (Indian Creek Designs) was forced to sign over with KEE Action Sports (the other giant in the paintball industry - I believe they were formerly PMI) because they didn't have the finances to battle Smart Parts.

Dye/Proto was able to fight back since they had the original spool valve patent.  I believe they just came to some sort of agreement.

WDP managed to prove (or at least convince the right people) that they had some aspect of the electronic marker design first and also came to an agreement.  I believe they managed to gain partial ownership of the Smart Parts patent(s) as well.

Gino of National Paintball (KEE, National, and PMI are all merged now, so the details are kind of fuzzy) was apparently the first to cave in and settle.  This set a precedent for SP to go after other companies.

I could go on, but after that, I believe most (if not all) of the current and future companies just paid the royalties.  I'm not sure how much, but I've heard rumors that some companies pay more in royalties than they do for manufacturing costs.  Anybody else see something wrong with having to pay a company to use a simple concept that that company didn't even come up with?

Now, on to some links.  If you can sort through all of the typical PBN crap, this thread has a lot of interesting info: http://www.pbnation.com/showthread.php?t=2397602 .  Over 2000 posts and it seems there were only around 6 people defending Smart Parts.  Two of which were SP employees.  Another two were sponsored by them.  Some highlights:

Some of Billy Gardner's posts:
http://www.pbnation.com/showthread.php?p=40787300#post40787300
http://www.pbnation.com/showthread.php?p=40789224#post40789224
http://www.pbnation.com/showthread.php?p=40789374#post40789374
http://www.pbnation.com/showthread.php?p=40789576#post40789576
I have to admit he had balls to post on PBN, but it didn't really help SP's image any.

http://www.pbnation.com/showthread.php?p=40790973#post40790973 - Perhaps their spiral ported barrel wasn't so original... and the Gardner's aren't the type of people we'd want on our team.

http://www.pbnation.com/showthread.php?p=40791445#post40791445 - some insight on the patent office.

http://www.pbnation.com/showthread.php?p=40791881#post40791881 - DocsMachine calls Billy out on some of his BS.

http://www.pbnation.com/showthread.php?p=40792128#post40792128 - here Billy claims the Chinese would be making everything if not for the patents, and boasts about his company employing around 200 Americans.  Glad he's done so much to keep 0.000007% of the population employed!  So what if it ruins the sport?

http://www.pbnation.com/showthread.php?p=40792321#post40792321 - Zox points out that SP outsourced some of the production for the Ion to China to cut costs.

http://www.pbnation.com/showthread.php?p=40792367#post40792367 - Even the useless Magic Box wasn't original.

http://www.pbnation.com/showthread.php?p=40792695#post40792695 - ...and just decreased air efficiency.
http://www.pbnation.com/showthread.php?p=40792849#post40792849 - 1984 patent for an electropneumatic airgun.

Tom Kaye's posts:
http://www.pbnation.com/showthread.php?p=40793042#post40793042
http://www.pbnation.com/showthread.php?p=40793216#post40793216
http://www.pbnation.com/showthread.php?p=40793283#post40793283

Some summary posts:
http://www.pbnation.com/showthread.php?p=40795116#post40795116
http://www.pbnation.com/showthread.php?p=40802883#post40802883
http://www.pbnation.com/showthread.php?p=40806887#post40806887

http://www.pbnation.com/showthread.php?p=40804891#post40804891 - not sure if this is true or not, but here's a post mentioning paying more for royalties than manufacturing.

http://www.pbnation.com/showthread.php?p=40820616#post40820616 - Points out some prior art that was neglected to be mentioned in the patent.

http://www.pbnation.com/showthread.php?p=40823350#post40823350 - explains the patent loophole a bit.

Some other links:

http://www.network54.com/Forum/9013/message/1192709186/Original+Electronic+Airgun+Patent - post from the original electronic airgun patent owner

http://www.network54.com/Forum/9013/message/1058942255/SP+Suit+FAQ- - summary of the ICD suit

http://forum.specialopspaintball.com/index.php?showtopic=134789 - another discussion thread.
http://forum.specialopspaintball.com/index.php?showtopic=134789&st=0&p=1786980&#entry1786980 - explains some more of the suits

http://p069.ezboard.com/Why-Smart-Parts-Suck/fnzpaintballfrm3.showMessage?topicID=1222.topic - this links to the first thread.  Some of the responses point out some posts worth reading.

Oh and one last thing - can you believe smart parts actually trademarked "FTW", "PWND", "1337", "53k5" and the like?

I didn't think to save links to all the interesting posts while I was reading, but if you just read the ones I've linked and maybe some of the surrounding responses, I think you'll understand why I feel the way I do.  If you read the whole threads, you'll probably feel the same way.

[KnacK]

I can honestly say I only have one SP part and that's a barrel for my automag.

whew, lots of work there Jits.

[S8NSSON]

When I was working on Maximum Velocity PaintBall I did a phone and email blitz of the industry in order to obtain samples to model by.
Was pretty cool...
I told them they would be represented in the game if they sent us a sample to accurately create our content with.

PMI sent me one of every bottle they had and a bunch of other stuff.
ION sent me a couple of guns.
Tippmann sent an A5, and a flatline barrel and response trigger kit.
WGP sent me one of each gun they had at the time
Odyssey sent a HALO B
Ricochet sent a loader
Got a Revy 12v
Bunch of barrels, cases and cases of paint, tubes, shirts, gloves...just all kinds of stuff.
Even Dye sent us a bunch of stuff.

Only two companies I approached didn't send me anything, WDP and Smart Parts.

WDP was actually pretty cool and said they didn't have the resources to let go free samples at that time. Truth or not they were cool about it.

Smart Parts, on the other hand, were jerks times ten. They, not only told me they weren't going to send me anything, they also said we could put anything of theirs in our game or else they would sue. I responded with the normal "It's a free mod" reply and told him to shove it up his ass.

Well...MVPB never came out cause management sucked, and I got a ton of free stuff. I had several modelers and skinners at my work then that were helping me and we split the goods and had us some fine gear. The leader of MVPB used to msg me and call me every day wanting me to send him all the stuff cause he was the leader of the mod and he should have it all. PFFFFT whatever. I did send hime tha A5 and all the extras to shut him up.

My SmartParts story...

Keith