Hey watch what you say....Heads Up

[MMT]

About a month ago there was a post on this forum about Chatterbaits. Several guys including myself posted about making these baits and even selling them.

Yesterday I received a letter in the mail from Counsel representing Rad Lures who I thought sold the rights to the Chatterbait to Z-Man.

Essentially the letter accused me of making profit off of the Chatterbait design although my bait is clearly different. The problem is that this lure is not patented, it was applied for in 2004 and has not yet been awarded. It may never be. So those accusations of infringement and making any money on a bait that doesn't have patent protection are irrelevant and false until and only if the patent is awarded.

It is like going to a car lot and chasing people away from the car you want to buy....maybe next month or next year because you don't have the money that day.

This was a letter to bully me into halting the making of my own unique bait which is different and uses different components and even a split ring on the blade.

I think what bothers me the most is the fact that the lawyer cut and pasted my two sentence post and fabricated it. He even went to my site and copied photos of my bait which are clearly different. Everything about the bait is different.

I pulled the bait from my line up because I don't want to be accused of any infringement especially on a lure I don't sell many of. I'm sure that is what they wanted.

My satisfaction is that this lawyer obviously put a lot of time into the "manuscript" he sent me so I merely looked at it and decided to take my bait off the market. Not a big deal to me.

Just be careful of those things on any site. Any idiot like that lawyer can cut and paste what you say and dare I say change the wording around.

Unfortunately if you wind up going to court over it, there won't be 12 bass anglers on the jury who can see and appreciate the differences between your bait and the other party's.

Just wanted to let you guys know that sometimes there are people trolling websites that are looking for this kind of stuff.

[johnnie crain outdoors]

Craig, good info. We all like to modify existing baits and maybe even sell a few. Guess we better watch ourselves, there is no privacy anymore. Johnnie :rolleyes: