#Patents

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome back to TFB’s Silencer Saturday, brought to you by Yankee Hill Machine, manufacturers of the new Victra 20-gauge shotgun suppressor. I was browsing through public patent filings as I sometimes do, and saw several new ideas in the silencer world that are interesting. Let’s take a look at some new things that might be coming.

A new patent from Ruger illustrates an exciting update to the classic 22/45 pistol. It seems that Ruger has developed a double-stack magazine! Let's take a look at the details.

Writing about lawsuits involving guns could be a full-time gig here at TFB. Unlike the recent raft of lawsuits challenging various gun control measures, we have a good old-fashioned patent suit today. The parties are names you probably already know, Palmetto State Armory and Shield Arms.

A lot of you here on TFB have closely followed various court cases over the years as we’ve reported them to you. In recent memory, there have been lawsuits between optics companies, and firearms manufacturers alike. Recently the TFB Podcast was reached out to by our guest today Mr. Dan Evans who not only reads TFB but has a particular interest in these specific topics – because it’s literally his job. Dan is an attorney who works for an Intellectual Property law firm and today he’s here to help walk us through the intricacies of patents and give us some insight as to how, and why various companies may want to sue one another over any alleged intellectual property violations. If you’ve been following the GWACs v KE Arms Lawsuit or the more recent Glock v Polymer80 case, this is a great episode to get a general understanding of how and why these processes take place.

In a recent legal action against Griffin Armament (Hearing Protection LLC), Patriot Ordnance Factory (POF) has asserted that the Griffin Armament SR-RIGID barrel nut design infringes on POF’s  heat sink barrel nut patent which has similar design characteristics to the 1928 Thompson Machine gun barrel. In a press release provided to us by Griffin Armament, the company explains that they feel that the litigation against them is meritless and also unfairly reduces free-market competition. The full press release is below but we’d like to hear your thoughts and comments on this subject as always.

It’s often been asked “why don’t GLOCK make rifles?” and time and time again we’ve heard rumours and even had a few hoaxes about a GLOCK Assault Rifle entering the market. But last month a couple of interesting new patents from GLOCK were published. It appears that GLOCK engineers have been hard at work on a rifle-caliber design for at least a couple of years.

The legal and leadership team at SIG Sauer have announced a victory today in a patent infringement case brought forth by Steyr Arms. The claim, as described in a complaint filed in the Northern District of Alabama in 2017 had previously alleged that SIG infringed on Steyr’s patent #6,260,301. The “301“ patent claim took aim at the plastic frame and metal trigger housing module that is characteristic of the SIG P250 and P320 handguns.

James recently wrote a pretty in-depth article looking at the pros and cons of the Full Conceal Glock pistol conversion system. This got me thinking ‘has anyone done this before?’ So I delved into the online patent archives, which is how all the cool guys spend their evenings, and went in search of earlier folding pistol designs – specifically ones that have a folding grip. I wasn’t disappointed. I found a number of patents for folding pistols dating all the way back to the 1860s. Lets take a look at some of the earlier designs which appeared during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Well wouldya lookie here? An innovative take on iron sights courtesy of industry newcomer Clear Image Solutions. Protected by US Patent #8,925,238, Clear Image Solutions has developed a replacement front sight for iron sights that uses a free-floated dot instead of the common post. In short, its a piece of fiber optic inside a piece of glass, inside a piece of carbon steel.

Typically, the larger companies do not file intellectual lawsuits with one another for a myriad of reasons.  Both, typically with competent and expensive attorneys, find it prohibitively expensive to defend intellectual property against a similarly sized opponent. This, of course ignores the marketing side of it which is typically never positive.

The United States government has won a major firearms-related victory in Federal appeals court today, regarding claims of patent infringement by Liberty Ammunition, LLC. Liberty had claimed that the US Army’s M855A1 EPR and M80A1 EPR projectiles infringed on its patent, US 7,748,325 for a multi-piece construction projectile. The claims court this case was submitted to ruled in favor of Liberty, but today that decision has been overturned by the Federal appeals court, which is the “final word” on the case (unless it somehow gets taken to the Supreme Court, an unlikely event).

In this 201-level post on the devices and mechanisms that automatic firearms use to do their work, we’ll be discussing a distinction between two very similar types of gas systems. These are what’s commonly known as the “Ljungmann-type” gas system (called so after a Swede, even though in reality a Frenchman invented it decades earlier) and “Stoner-type” gas system. Both are forms of what’s called “direct impingement”, a term which has two different meanings, one of which we’ll discuss today

[ Steve says: This guest post was written by a practicing patent attorney with no connection whatsoever to the Mossberg AR-15 trigger patent lawsuits. ]

Disclaimer: I don’t really speak financialese, and therefore would urge readers to double-check anything I’ve written on the subject. Don’t be afraid to correct me in the comments, either!

Reddit can often point me to the most interesting of things. Latest is an old patent form Charles John Cooke, who formally patented (though arguably did not actually make the first one), a repeating firearm for trench warfare. Of principal interest to me is the extended magazine, which shows a single-stack capacity of almost 30 rounds.