Any word on Bo-Mar?

C

Casimer

New member
I noticed that bomar's website has been taken down. A few months ago, a local gunsmith had told me that the company is on the market.

Does anyone know what the status of the company is currently?


* I'm aware that the most recent owner had passed away.
 
That's too bad. It was a family run business for years, AFAIK. A lot of small shooting-related companies have trouble withstanding the loss of a founder because it is the kind of business that is sustained through lean times by love of the sport it caters to. Nobody really gets rich off shooting equipment. The fact it needs a shooter at the helm and that it will eat up labor-of-love hours makes it hard to sell such an operation. Often they get broken up and the equipment is bought by others already in the industry.
 
Dang. I suspect that you're right unclenick. It's my understanding that it was a very small operation. But they certainly made a name for themselves.
 
I was thinking that some similar small shop might pick up production if demand is sufficient. I just took a look at my revolver, and the rib is marked BO MAR, WINGED and PAT. I'm curious, what typically happens to the patents in cases like this?
 
"I'm curious, what typically happens to the patents in cases like this?"

If they have sufficient life left someone might purchase them, or they will just expire (as some may have already).

They are an asset of the company, and whoever owns its assets.
 
Patents used to expire 17 years after the date of issue. Due to a rule change, those filed after 7 June 1995 expire 20 years after the original date of the patent application. Bomar was around for so long, it is hard to imagine they would still have had valid patents out there. Once expired, the only purpose a patent has, other than to pad the issuee's resume, is to serve as prior art to prevent someone form re-patenting the same thing. Patents cannot be renewed.
 
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brickeyee Enclenick

Thanks for the pat. info.
It fits in with the Bo Mar just saying "PAT" without the usual "US" and a number -- It seems they wanted us to know that it had once been covered by a patent.
 
Patent numbers are often put on items to warn others that making hte item could be a patent violation.
On smaller items it is not uncommon to just mark "pat" if the number will not fit.
 
In a patent infringement suite it is up to the person doing the violating to show he made a good faith effort not to infringe on the patent. That usually takes the form of getting a written opinion and analysis from a patent attorney that the attorney does not believe there is any infringement, or that he believes the patent is invalid. The wise violator gets this done before he starts making and selling his widget. Failure to show such a good faith effort will often result in tripled penalties. For that reason, anyone looking to copy something or come close to doing so has to look up the patent themselves and pay to get such an opinion or they put themselves at financial risk.

Sometimes that all gets ignored. It costs about $20K just to start an infringement suit, typically. There are no such things as patent police. Many small time patent holders don't make enough money on their gadget to make it worthwhile to file suit. One thing the patent still does for them is guarantee some bigger outfit can't patent their idea and then turn around and stop the inventor from making his own device. The other, if he's really lucky, is a big company steals the idea and makes millions, at which point a litigating group of patent attorneys will usually take the case on a contingency basis. I believe that's what happened when Detroit stuck it to the independent inventors of the cruise control and of the automatic windshield wiper. It took about 20 years, but it worked out for the inventors. It serves as a warning, though to anyone figuring to invent something useful for automobiles, though, that it won't go smoothly even if it is adopted.
 
Per Unclenick, patent litigation is usually expensive for both parties. Old friend of mine is a biomedical inventor, as well as an oral surgeon. He claims to have invented the heart vessel stent. He took the idea to a famous heart surgeon and, according to my friend, the surgeon "stole" the patented device from him.

Friend wound up spending his retirement account (several hundred thousand dollars) in litigation expenses, with dismal results.
 
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