Earlier today I posted about what’s happening between Sears and TTI over a Craftsman power tool supply dispute.
Sears’ CEO had harsh words yesterday about One World, the TTI subsidiary that they work with, and later in the day a lawsuit was filed against the supplier.
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In trying to search for the complaint itself, I came across this other bit of news: Loggerhead Tools has issued a press release announcing their $6 Million win in a patent infringement lawsuit against Sears and Apex Tool Group.
Wow. So a day after Sears sues a supplier for wanting to renegotiate a supply contract that would “unilaterally” benefit themselves, it’s announced that Sears has lost a patent infringement lawsuit against one of their former vendors.
This headline by a Chicago paper says it all: Sears ripped off local tool maker, jury rules.
From the Loggerhead Tools press release:
On May 12, a Chicago jury found that Sears and Apex willfully infringed all of the asserted claims of LoggerHead’s patents and that each of those claims is valid.
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The jury awarded LoggerHead past damages in the amount of $5,979,616. The jury further found that both Sears and Apex willfully infringed LoggerHead’s patents, and based on that finding LoggerHead will petition the court to enhance damages up to three times the amount of past damages against both Sears and Apex, and will also seek prejudgment interest, attorneys’ fees, and a permanent injunction forbidding future sales of infringing products.
This was unexpected, in my opinion, but I’m not an expert on patent law.
One cannot help but see the irony in all this. Just yesterday Sears’ CEO ranted about and then sued a supplier they alleged is trying to screw them over, and today it came to light that earlier in the month Sears lost a years-long lawsuit over Sears, Craftsman, and Apex Tool Group screwing over a small USA tool company.
Chrisk1970
I think this is great news. Good for Brown. I read this a couple of years ago about Sears taking the tool and morphing it into their own.
fred
I recall you writing about this several years ago – and what I thought about Sears was : “shame on them”. Now that they’ve got their comeuppance – my thought is: “good”. What about the 2 sizes of the Max Access wrench that are still on sale – is Sears likely to pull them and Apex stop making them – or just drag things out until remaining stock is sold off? The tool itself was too gimmicky for my tastes – but I applaud the win by Loggerhead and hope that they actually collect their money.
Nicholas Thomas Ranella
I actually own the bionic wrench, and ironicaly it was purchased at sears years ago!!!!
Hang Fire
Ironically, I got my Bionic Wrench from Sears on closeout, for less than they were selling the Craftsman rip-off version. I wonder how Sears expects to make money undercutting their own brand like that. (I guess we all wonder how Sears expects to make money!)
I have no illusions it is useful as a wrench. As a wrench it’s one of those tools that is “useful where any tool will also do.”
As a hose crimping device, though, it excels.
Nathan S
Upon learning of Loggerhead’s complaint against Sears, I picked up a multi-tool version of Loggerhead’s Bionic Wrench specifically at Sears. I put it in my vehicle console and have used it several times… works better at holding a nut than my fingers.
Mizzourob
I bet this gets appealed almost immediately, though there could be a temporary injection against the craftsman max access wrench until an appeals court decides to accept the appeal.
Toolfreak
Yeah, given their financial situation, Sears will undoubtedly appeal this over and over.
Even if they have little chance of success, all they really have to do is keep the appeals process going until they go out of business – then they won’t be paying out damages or anything else.
The only real chance for Brown and Loggerhead Tools is if a judge finds Sears has no chance of success on appeal and would be wasting the court’s time, in which case there will still be a lot of legal wrangling and delay tactics to avoid paying the money as long as possible, but there’s a much better chance they will at least have to pay some percentage of the damages, interest, and attorney’s fees.
Les Newcomer
Yeah, gimmicky is a good term. Like dog bone wrenches, the head of this is too large to use for anything but bicycle fork nuts, but I’m glad to see Sears get the face smack they deserve. On the other hand, money fighting this and its appeal will pull money that is sorely needed to re-invent and save the company.
pete
But is it “sears’ money”? Technically if they stole his design, idea and product and sold it in place of his product than it was never sears money to begin with, which is theft.
Tim
I applaud Loggerhead here.
Too many corps try to rip off the little guy and then hide behind their expensive suits.
I also applaud sawstop though but funny how one guy getting screwed everyone supported and the other was a crybaby.
Stuart
When the issue first came to light, there was a deluge of media stories about “Sears screwing over a small USA tool company,” to gain support. To me, the situation wasn’t very clear, as Sears was saying that they based their design on the same 3rd party and expired patent that Loggerhead Tools leaned on for their Bionic Wrench.
The media loves beating up on Sears, and so that’s why there was a lot of support for Loggerhead Tools.
SawStop didn’t go on a public exposure campaign, and even if they did, their story isn’t as sensational, so it wouldn’t have gotten as much attention or publicity.
Toolfreak
The stories are completely different.
Sears actually screwed over Loggerhead since they originally sold the Bionic Wrench only at Sears under an exclusivity agreement. When Sears went behind their back and had a Craftsman-branded tool made in China, Loggerhead was still under that agreement and so Sears had the ability to push its Craftsman tool in its stores, and keep Loggerhead from selling ANY tools since they couldn’t sell them anywhere else.
Sawstop went around trying to sell their product and didn’t get any takers. So they made it themselves. That apparently wasn’t enough for them, since when Bosch came out with a saw that did the same thing but in a different (and in many ways, better) way, they sued saying they owned the rights to Bosch’s version of the product even though it was different. Then that wasn’t enough so they went and are now trying to force all manufacters to use their tech.
Loggerhead and Sears was a real case of the little guy getting screwed by the corporation – and it looks like he won, at least in this initial round.
Sawstop and Bosch was a case of the little guy trying to screw over the corporations – and he seems to be winning.
Stuart
I don’t think there was any exclusivity deal, Sears simply ordered large quantities for seasonal promo displays, and pushed it via marketing efforts, and then for one season they decided to create their own tool and not order from Loggerhead.
The question was whether their new tool was close enough in design that it infringed on Loggerhead Tools’ patents, rather than simply drawing from the same 3rd party patents.
At the time, Loggerhead Tools were sold at lots of other stores. I haven’t seen seasonal displays anywhere else since, and so I have doubts they could have made any similar promo arrangements years ago when this first happened.
Maybe the exclusivity was only in regard to seasonal arrangements.
With SawStop, they believed Bosch was infringing upon their patents, and the court ruled in their favor, blocking additional Bosch saws from being imported.
It seems very clear to me that SawStop is not behind the current CPSC movements. Maybe their involvement a few years ago was exaggerated, it’s impossible to know.
Mark
I got my Bionic wrench at Lowe’s last Christmas. Each store had a seasonal sidestack display of them – probably 20 or 30 wrenches in it.
Toolfreak
I remember reading from the original story that Loggerhead was only selling the bionic Wrench through Sears initally, which was the other part of their issue besides infringement – they couldn’t legally sell it at places like Home Depot, Lowe’s, etc. that holiday season when Sears first came out with their version, so Loggerhead took a huge financial hit. They later were able to sell elsewhere but still lost a huge amount of sales.
I have my doubts on the Sawstop stuff. It just reeks of people being paid off and palms greased to achieve a particular result. Just because they aren’t publicly disclosing any involvement with the CPSC, doesn’t mean they don’t have people involved in pushing it through the CPSC. I’m skeptical that pushing such a specific type of tech into such a particular type of product is something the CPSC just suddenly came across on it’s own and decided to require market-wide. If it were a more restrained, limited decision, like requiring all new saws used in commerical applications after 2022 to have the tech, and setting goals for the percentage of saws in the consumer space that would have the tech by certain targets, then sure, but even suggesting that the entire market has to change and do something only two companies do at the moment and where one company with the tech just won a suit over the other? Nah, there’s something going on that doesn’t smell right.
Brian
Not just that but Sawstop tried to get legislation passed to make THEIR system mandatory to force companies to license the product, which eliminates ALL reasonably priced table saws. They do that under the guise that they want to make the work place a safer environment then they sue Bosch for their system which is better than Sawstops.
If they didn’t pursue legislation to make all companies adopt their system they’d have more support. They should have let the market dictate whether the cost is worth the safety, not demand that the market change and price the average guy and small business out of a table saw.
Jim Felt
This reminds me of Tim Leatherman successfully defending his original “Leatherman” tool concept.
Good for them. And screw the corporate raider in charge of gutting Sears.
Toolfreak
This is pretty amazing.
Really bad news for Sears – and Apex, given their finances.
I’d expect this will hasten the demise of Sears, especially if they really do get a judgement for $15M+, or even if they eventually settle.
I wonder if the people behind the scheme to copy the tool and make it over in China will be fired.
Davida1
On one hand this is good news, that Justice won in the end. But on the other hand the legal system itself is somewhat an injustice, that it took six! years. How many small companies can afford the time and money to fight for that long. I think that’s why we here of so few of these stories, many little guys get ripped off but the just give up/run out of time/money/willpower.
glenn
Really? Who in their right mind would buy one of those things anyway let alone argue about it?
glenn
And yes,
I am not missing the bigger picture. It is a case of the retailer dictating terms to the manufacture/supplier.
We have a similar set up in Australia with our major hardware store Bunnings., They have repeatedly flaunted and have flirted on the edge of our very weak government anti competitive legislation.
Basically, price fixing.
fsm
Happy to see that small start ups still have a chance against big companies
And that the law at least on this case was on theyre side.
Grady
Good news!
David
Bad update –
https://www.inc.com/leigh-buchanan/main-street-loggerhead-tools-sears-patent-dispute.html
Jim
Bad update for Loggerhead.
People love a good David and Goliath story, and Loggerhead definitely used that to their advantage. However, Goliath isn’t always the bad guy.