One could argue that Smittybuilt is innovative because they understand the market place better and can come up with lower cost alternatives to otherwise not affordable products. I've looked at maxtrax, but after finding out how much they cost, I bagged out on them. Not really a must have for my needs, but i nice to have. If Maxtrax wanted to continue to innovate they could come out with a lower cost product for people like me who just don't need the extreme of what they offer. Patents don't last forever. You can't just innovate once, then call it a day. If you want to succeed in a competitive marketplace you have to continue to innovate. Look at companies like Teraflex, started out with lift kits, now they have sliders, carriers, bumpers etc. You can also tell they have a lot of technology in their designs making them harder to copy and offering the customer better benefits.
If you wanted to you could probably make a maxtrax design that was even better then theirs in some way, like specially designing it to fit somewhere smart in a jeep, toyota, etc. You could make one that breaks in half making it easier to store and you could get away with buying one instead of 2 and use it on both tires in a pinch n the beach. I could go on and on. Point is Smittybuilt saw an opportunity, or some would say a gap in the marketplace, that was not being filled by Maxtrax and took advantage of it. This is the way business works. I am for supporting the small guy, but if it makes no sense to do so, forget about it.
