Conid Clone By Penbbs?

[JonSzanto]

[Freddy]

{Freakin'HappySmileyFaceTimeThingie}

 

Fred

Give me your tired.....

The New Colossus

[Pinkys.Brain]

I am NO patent attorney, so take what I write with a healthy heap of salt, but it appears to me that the registered European patent of the Conid bulkfiller mainly relates to the specific locking mechanism of the piston rod. I do not own either pen, so I cannot actually compare them, but if the locking mechanism differs, than the Penbbs pen would not infringe the Conid patent.

 

During prosecution Conid had to limit the claims, probably because the basic filing mechanism itself was not new or inventive enough.

 

Back to the pens: even if they are based on the same idea, calling one a clone of the other is a bit much. The designs are different, and overall quality should be different too. People who buy the 355 and not the Conid probably would not have bought the Conid in the first place or want to test the system before they take the deep dive. I think it is good for the pen community that both pens exist. Of course, Conid clearly put in a great amount of effort to make their pen and it shows. But Penbbs also succeeded in creating an affordable bulkfiller, and that is also worth something.

 

(Lot of edits since my phone's autocorrect is arghhhh)

Edited August 10, 2020 by Pinkys.Brain

[Mech-for-i]

....

 

Conid clearly put in a great amount of effort to make their pen and it shows. But Penbbs also succeeded in creating an affordable bulkfiller, and that is also worth something.

 

(Lot of edits since my phone's autocorrect is arghhhh)

 

Very well put , the whole response , and hmm my phone do that to me also .... lol

 

Edited August 10, 2020 by Mech-for-i

[fountainbel]

On 8/7/2020 at 7:42 PM, ek-hornbeck said:

I think it's weird that everyone is busy explaining to Fountainbel the legal details of the applicability of his patent. But not one comment pointing out that it's sleazy to rip off other people's ideas without compensating them or licensing their IP.

 

I'm not a lawyer, so I have no idea what the legal fine points are. But I don't need to be a lawyer to see that Fountainbel's creativity and innovation have been appropriated.

 

It's pathetic how little innovation there is in the world of fountain pen technology and design. High-end pens are mostly based on century-old designs. Pelikan, for example, is still selling their 1929 piston-filler technology. They dress it up in "limited editions," and slather a lot of marketing bloviation on top, but it's just old wine in new bottles. Pilot's clever retractable-nib tech hasn't changed in almost sixty years. And it shows. The pens leak, have no ink capacity, and dry out because the little trap door doesn't seal that well. They've had sixty years to work on these issues, but they haven't. Just like Pelikan, they just keep peddling the same stuff in new colors of plastic shell, instead of doing the hard work of working on the underlying mechanisms.

 

And Pelikan and Pilot are two reasonably vital companies in the ecosystem today, who make good products. I don't mean to pick on them; they're just convenient examples.

 

Fountainbel's Bulkfiller design is a rare exception to this desert of innovation. Certainly there are precedents to his design, but there always are, and the devil is in the details. And Conid's bulkfiller design is a great idea. It's astounding how much ink it permits a pen to hold. It completely solves the "airplane" problem.

 

But why bother innovating, which is a hassle and takes lots of work, and thought, and risk? Mainland Chinese companies, which are are notorious for violating copyright and infringing on patents, will just come along and blast out inexpensive implementations of your design.

 

I am surprised at how one-sided the comments in this thread have been. Especially since Goosens is not some faceless abstraction. He's an actual, active, contributing member of the FPN community, one of our own. I have seen him make insightful and useful posts here.

 

EKH

Dear fountain pen friends !

Its been a long time since I've visited this topic , sorry...

And yes, we learned during the first patenting stage of our Bulkfiller that we did not invent  the "Syringe filler with collapsable rod" . But  we also learned this system never reached the market.

Nevertheless our Bulkfiller system was granted with a European, American and Taiwanese patent.

All three patent offices were convinced of the important advantages inherent to our design.

The patented axial & radial secured piston parking possibility being our first claim 

The  integrated  axial  "stick -slip " breaker cam - which pushes the piston 1.5 forward when unlocking it from its parking position.

When a piston remains static for a few days the micro ink film between the piston sealing lips is gradually pushed outwards, resulting in a "dry contact", hence the piston is initially very hard to move

The 1,5 mm stroke ensures  the dry piston seal get in the wetted part of the barrel resulting in a smooth movement of the piston

Below the European patent file showing the specific claims of our patent.

Kind regards,

Francis

https://worldwide.espacenet.com/patent/search/family/045607658/publication/EP2628605A1?q=pn%3DEP2628605A1

[Dan Carmell]

On 3/31/2020 at 1:40 PM, Karmachanic said:

No. But the do have a syringe filler that is similar. 355

Is a syringe filler essentially the same as the plunger filler used by 1940s Sheaffers/Pilot 823/Wing Sung 699? The filling diagram suggests there’s a significant difference but I’m not clever enough mechanically to understand the difference. I’m aware that there were pre-WW II pens in the US that were referred to as syringe fillers, but I don’t know if they used the same mechanism at all. 

[Dan Carmell]

On 6/5/2020 at 11:10 PM, Mech-for-i said:

 

Some day I might, might be I should , write a short long post about the Chinese pens and why and how they come to be after the war ( and might be even before the war )

You make many good points, especially about the 601, which is a splendid pen that would have never come out of the West (Parker has tried 3 versions of a new P-51, each worse than the last). In particular I’d love to even read a long post about this topic. It’s all rumors and conjecture here, with little understanding of the facts it context. 

[Dan Carmell]

On 6/5/2020 at 11:10 PM, Mech-for-i said:

 

Some day I might, might be I should , write a short long post about the Chinese pens and why and how they come to be after the war ( and might be even before the war )

You make many good points, especially about the 601, which is a splendid pen that would have never come out of the West (Parker has tried 3 versions of a new P-51, each worse than the last). In particular I’d love to even read a long post about this topic. It’s all rumors and conjecture here, with little understanding of the facts it context. 

[JonSzanto]

On 3/28/2022 at 7:14 PM, Dan Carmell said:

Is a syringe filler essentially the same as the plunger filler used by 1940s Sheaffers/Pilot 823/Wing Sung 699?

 

No. The vac-fill system, like the Sheaffer, works by creating a vacuum behind a seal as you do a downstroke on the rod; when it reaches the end of the barrel a gap opens up and the ink floods in - the seal stays at the front of the barrel and the plunger is screwed into place at the back.

 

A syringe filler is just that: it works like a syringe you would inject fluids into something. Because of this, and the fact that it can only be about half as long as the barrel, you don't have as big an ink supply. You push the plunger down to expel air, insert pen into ink, and then pull back, thereby pulling ink into the chamber. The syringe plunger stays in that back position and a cap is screwed in place, covering it. Piston fillers improved on this, especially the telescoping variety.

 

All these filling systems, and more, are covered pretty well on this page at Richard Binder's site.

[Dan Carmell]

On 3/29/2022 at 9:20 PM, JonSzanto said:

.

All these filling systems, and more, are covered pretty well on this page at Richard Binder's site.

Thanks for the explanation, I guess I didn’t take it literally enough!  I realize now I’ve handled some very cheap US vintage syringe fillers without knowing what they were. 
 

Yes, Richard’s site is still a go-to, glad he kept it up after retirement.