Allow me to play devil's advocate for a moment. But before I do, rest assured that if I were in the market for a new expedition trailer, the first I would consider would be AT. Martyn and Mario build an excellent product with features superior to their competition. Also, Martyn has been very helpful to me in determining the direction I will probably take when I make some upgrades to my Bantam trailer. I am not promoting or defending anyone, and the points I make are not necessarily my own opinions, I'm simply offering another possible point of view for this ongoing debate.
Reverse engineering has been a fact of American business for hundreds of years. Unless a design is patented, or an idea copyrighted, it is fair game.
Have you ever purchased Pepsi? Where do you think the company got the basic formula? The answer is reverse engineering. Take some Coca-Cola to the chemist and have him break it down to it's component parts, then experiment until the taste is as close as possible. Why isn't Pepsi exactly the same? Because Coke keeps it's formula secret so that competitors cannot duplicate it exactly. The rest is marketing.
Ever purchased generic brand shampoo labled "compare to Paul Mitchell," etc. That's reverse engineering. Is there anything unethical about it? No. It would only be unethical if they labeled the bottle "same as Paul Mitchell" or otherwise attempted to deceive people into believing the product was just like or actually was a Paul Mitchell product. There is nothing magic about shampoo. Different companies use different ingredients and different manufacturing processes, but the products are largely the same.
How about generic drugs? They are the same as the brand name, available after the patent for the brand name drug has expired, and considerably less expensive. Anyone here think it is wrong to buy generics or unethical to manufacture them?
I worked in a chemical research lab one summer while I was in college. Most of the work was analyzing commercial products to determine how they were made. Clients were major corporations who paid substantial sums to learn as much as they could about their competition. No one thought that the lab or it's clients were unethical. It was a fact of business.
The situation here is similar to that of an offroading friend who markets gas tank skid plates for TJs and other jeep models. He came up with his design by taking a similar skid plate for CJs that he got from a friend of mine who designed and built 10 in his garage for members of my jeep club (I have one.) He then then adapted it to TJs. Several years later, a company in another state began to market a very similar skid plate, which my friend was convinced was developed from a skid plate that he had sold to the man who turned out to be his future competitor. Was my friend angry? You bet. Did he have legal grounds to stop his new competitor? Unfortunately, no. The design was neither patented nor copyrighted, and frankly, there are not a lot of ways to design a full coverage skid plate for a TJ. Now, there are dozens of companies marketing similar products, including Warn, and the price has come down considerably. One or more of you may actually own one.
Another example is 4X Doctor in Burbank. He was the first to market rocker guards with upward canted tube steps for CJs and YJs, also differential guards. He didn't obtain patents or copyrights, and it is unlikely that he could have. Now there are dozens of highly regarded companies marketing lookalike products, including Poison Spyder, etc. Where do you think they got the idea? Are all of them unethical?
Capitalism is survival of the fittest in its purest form. Patents and copyrights were originally granted by the British crown to protect original designs and ideas from copying without permission and payment of royalties (hence the term). Once the patent or copyright expired, the design or ida became part of the public domain and available to anyone. Therefore, companies must continually adapt and introduce new products as the patents/copyrights expire, competition develops and market share is split.
Martyn has extensive experience using expedition trailers, particularly the South African style and I assume the Australian style trailers as well. He has owned several (well, one that I know of, but I assume several). I'm confident that few would argue that by using these trailers and experiencing what worked and what didn't, that he was unethical when he developed his own ideas, taking the best from his experience and improving the concept. I also doubt that anyone here would accuse AT of being unethical by actually purchasing a trailer and then developing their own, incorporating their uniques experience, but with some striking similarities.
Form follows function. Supply follows demand. Success draws attention. The guy everyone is complaining about is satisfying demand with a product at a lower price point. He product is not as sophisticated as an AT trailer, but what he is building apparently satisfies a need in the marketplace. He isn't claiming that his product is an AT product or that it is better than an AT product. At most, he is saying "compare with AT" just like the generic shampoo companies. Is he violating any patents or copyrights? I doubt it. And just as the AT trailers are loosely derived from military 1/4 ton trailers and post-war South African and Australian expedition trailers, his is derived from all of those plus AT. Remember, form follows function. And if his product isn't as good, or doesn't work as well, or is priced too high, he will fail. That's how a free marketplace works. It's part of the natural product cycle - the originator starts with 100% of the market share, which diminishes over time as others get into the same market. That inspires continued innovation and development of new products, keeps the marketplace efficient, and prices low.
OK, let the debate continue.
