by 1911fan on Tue May 11, 2010 7:57 pm
Holster design falls under that same level of development as say, claw hammers, comfy chairs, and window fans. They are such common items, that unless you are able to present something completely new, and completely provable as being new, trying to patent or trademark it is darn near impossible. I am willing to bet that all of us have a comfy chair somewhere in the house, it has been designed in a very similar manner for many many years, and many many people make them, Until someone like barcalounger or lazyboy came along with the recliners, no one had substantially altered the design for a few hundred years. Same with holsters, I have holsters that are 100 years old that I can show have similar design qualities to those being touted here.
The only recourse is not whining about it, but designing something new and improved that no one else have ever designed, Its like shoes, how many hundreds of thousands of styles of shoes are there? Unless you are able to prove a new design using new methods or materials, your just making shoes.
IF you start with something that you can trademark as an insignia of brand, say something like the Nike SWOOSH or the Levi's red tab, then you have something if people copy them, but look how many people make jeans that almost but not quite copy Levi's and you'll see, its not us being unfriendly,