Legal Questions on Design Patents (reptile related)

[Zen Reptiles]

I am curious how Exo Terra and Zoo Med can make such similar cages.

Who came up with it first? How can they make such similar looking cages in design? Did one or the other 'loan' the idea to the other with royalties attached? Did the original company just not patent the idea? I thought patents protected that kind of thing and have been wondering this for a while.

Does anyone know the story??

 

[nightanole]

There is not a zoomed or exo terra factory. These companies buy complete cages or parts from an oem, slap a lizard on it, and sell it in stores. They do not need to reinvent the wheel, they just have to find some suppliers so they can build the product they like. Zoomed has a german oem make their bulbs according to their specs, but you will not find a building in germany called zoomed light bulb co. You will find one manufacture that makes bulbs for lots of customers including zoomed.


If you want to have some real fun, try buying nik nacks. As an experiment try a purse hook. 50 companies selling their own brand, all with the same hardware, and most with the same black bag. All made at the same factory, just with little changes according to the customers orders.


Back to the original question. If the oem has the patent, most of the time they are free to sell the product to others as long as they dont infringe on the companies trade mark.

Or take my company. Customer X wants a thingy, by the time my company does all the engineering and buys all the production hardware, its just not worth it to us to make it exclusively for just customer X. We would have an agreement upfront saying we are allowed to sell the product to other competitors after a preset time or some other stipulation such as price or volume. If customer X says no then the product never exists.

 

[maxttu]

I had a summer job one year working for Mobil Chemical. They made trash bags, styrofoam plates and other plastic stuff.

All of the trash bags came off of the same assembly line, made with the same chemicals and went into different boxes. Hefty, Glad and generic. Same product, different brand names. I was shocked that the generic brand was of same quality.

 

[Zen Reptiles]

Very interesting. So it's stipulations in the contract with the factory making the product that protects the companies selling the product, not patents? So any company could go negotiate terms to with the factory, not Hagen, to sell the exo terra cage under their own name?

So Hagen (exoterra) says to the factory owner they want exclusive supply of this design for 3 years before the factory can sell to zoo med, and they would negotiate some deal?

Thanks for the very insightful responses!