thanks Alfred, and so knowing that Timberbits states whether his supplier is Chinese or Taiwanese etc on his site makes one wonder if the supplier of the Cambridge kits is not one and the same!
Kinda like CD players all made in the same factory and then labeled Sony, Pioneer etc
Food for thought as they say :wink:
I have been asked to reply to this thread.
May I first start by saying this is a very politically charged topic and in the past I have always tried to stay out from the discussions because it only infuriates the different players.
As stated in a previous post, a "project manager" handles the manufacture of the pen kits. Different steps such as plating, threading, flanging, CNC engraving etc are farmed out to smaller factories. There are fewer and fewer of these smaller factories in Taiwan because they our going out of business due to Main Land China super low prices.
I use a project manager that has traditionally done contract making for the super high end completed pens for the big expensive brands. Yes they too farm out work to Taiwan. My Mother use to run and own a high end Jewellery shop - this is how we met the factory/project manager. Traditionally the project manager works for an "Agent" who can speak both Chinese and English/French or Japanese. The Agent works for client and goes out to look for and engage a suitable project manager. This particular project manager (as most) cannot speak or read a word of English. Again traditionally, depending on the size of the order, the agent can earn a commission of 50% - 150% (yes your reading it right). Guess who pays for the commission - yes you the end user.
The project manager probably farms out specialist work to the same small factories as the other pen kit manufactures, who knows? I surely don't because they keep these things a guarded family secret. It's like telling your competition where you source your goods from.
Pen making is not like a DVD manufacturer where it comes off a production line, its a lot more of a cottage industry. Toyota's and Lexus' comes off the same production line - hell they are even owned by the same company, would you be game enough to call your Toyota a Lexus? or even the other way round, would you call your Lexus a Toyota. They are made to different specs and made with different components.
Regarding the Name - Cambridge Hybrid. This has been discussed at length about different names for the same kits. It confuses the living daylights out of everyone. Its just a name for a particular kit.
If you want to protect the name or the design, you can get it protected by registering the Trademark or put a paten out on the name and design. Even though I have gone through Law school, I am by no stretch of the imagination a IP Lawer. With a quick search of the United States Paten and Trademark Office, there has been nothing lodged for that particular name.
From what I can see, its only the Berea Brand Quality logo that has been trademarked - (Jan 28 2011) The mark consists of the word Berea in all capital letters followed by the word Brand in sentence case; the word Quality appears underneath both words with a check mark through the leg of the Q in Quality. No Trademark number has been issued yet for this logo.
I hope this clears a bit of the confusion, but being a realist its probably done the reverse and only raised more questions.
Thanks for reading
Timberbits.
