Aside from the "Some important lessons" section (which seemed very patronizing, although OXO seems to be in the right here considering the expired patent aspect), it seems that OXO handled themselves pretty well. It pointed out Quirky's side of things, and then presented their own side. With quite a bit of citation where appropriate.
Quirky[1] went straight for the "justice" aspect in their post without presenting much info or even a cursory discussion of related patents.
I'd TL;DR them down to "Whatever your bright idea is probably isn't as original as you think. If you think nobody else has thought of it you probably haven't looked very hard, or if you're very lucky the numerous other people who thought of it at the same time as you or before you never pursued it".
We all live in the same world (now more than ever), we're all influenced by the same things and IMO ideas are more tied to a time and the zeitgeist than they are to any person, every personal and historical "bright idea" I've ever encountered backs this up in my experience.
This is why ideas are a "dime a dozen" and execution is everything.
And the whole thing feels cheap and desperate. I like the idea of being scrappy and unorthodox, but one corporate entity protesting another? It just smells terrible.
What feels even cheaper are the public protesters (assuming they are in fact real unpaid people). It's bad enough when people go all frothy over iOS vs Android, but over household product brands? I mean time to re-evaluate your priorities people.
It does smell of an attempt to create the Streisand effect in reverse. Which would be kind of quirky (sorry couldn't resist).
I really enjoyed OXO's response. I wonder if you see that someone is trying to create something out of nothing, how to blunt that? The OXO response seems to try for that, a bit low key, sort of 'kids will be kids' kind of thing.
Yeah this is really lame. Shouldn't they be busy with more "innovative" products? Couldn't they have just hired some non-union union protesters for this?
To make it even better, they brought the kids to it too. Because, you know, whichever side brings the kids is the right one, because, think of the kids, right?!
I don't care about the rivalry between two companies producing similar products... but this line really hit me hard:
> Ideas are limitless and patents expire for a reason: to encourage competition, innovation, and the evolution of new ideas that ultimately benefit the end user. If patents never expired, we would have only one car company, and the cars they develop would likely not be readily available and affordable to so many people all over the world. Imagine that.
OXO has ~100 people. The parent company has a market cap of 1.6B (including Pur water filters and a few other brands). Quirky has ~80 people and $91 million in VC funding. Assuming Quirky is operating under the normal VC rules, they want to soon be a billion dollar company - larger than OXO.
I find it strange that Quirky is playing up the "david vs goliath" angle. If you've been in both of their offices, Quirky actually feels like they have more money.
More importantly, if Quirky wants to be a billion dollar company, they are going to have to do something a whole lot more innovative than a better dust pan.
The crazy thing is that they make eight and a half different products per employee. When you think about the fact that you're talking about physical products, that's crazy.
OXO is one of my favorite companies. They seem to have the same quirky creative culture as much of the tech industry, except maybe even friendlier, plus a great design philosophy.
I was just really confused. Is it or isn't it the same OXO who have been producing stock cubes since the 19th century (and built the highly-visible OXO tower in London)?
On searching, it appears not to be, and the US OXO brand was 'invented' in 1990.
I found the Broom Groomer on Quirky's site [1], and what do you know?--the product description says, Patent pending. Well, that must mean there's a patent application in the USPTO system! Sure enough, Quirky's patent application, dated September 7, 2011 (provisionally filed April 18), titled Waste receptacle [2]. Bill Ward is one of the inventors. I am not qualified to judge this patent against the one mentioned by OXO, so I invite others to compare the two.
Patent pending or not, there's clear evidence of prior art, and the patent will most likely be rejected. I can file a patent on about anything from the wheel on up, and for the period between filing and rejection, I can claim that the wheel is patent pending - it still doesn't give me much further protection.
I've been in the tech industry for too long. The first few times, I read "Quirky" as "Quirk.ly".
That said, this sounds insane to me. Why would you spend money going to war with a competitor over such a trivial matter? ("OXO copied a patent that we also copied. Help, help, I'm being repressed.") Only to lose in the end? I don't get it.
One other observation: excellent application of Betteridge's Law of Headlines.
> Why would you spend money going to war with a competitor over such a trivial matter?
I think the Quirky people genuinely thought they were ripped off. They wanted to be seen as the small company of inventors being ripped of by a much larger company. Unfortunately, they lacked enough introspection to realize they have done worse, and now they look like hypocrites.
I had the pleasure of meeting the father son team that started OXO a few years back. Their story is very interesting, they started out redesigning the carrot peeler, and look where they are today.
Side note: I ordered a bunch of stuff from quirky the first time I saw the site and almost all the the stuff I got is really complete crap.
Seems to be the both OXO and Quirky are acting in good faith here, and Quirky just went completely of the reservation instead of even considering they may be wrong. I can understand how this could happen, for instance if OXO's initially didn't take Quirky's case seriously enough to give it a decent response like they're doing now.
The ball is in Quirky's court now. If they have any shred of decency they will at the very least admit that they completely overreacted and that the case is more complicated than they claimed.
I don't expect that though. There is something horribly "off" about the lame way Quirky dressed up a PR stunt like genuine protest, the kind of people that do that are not the kind that are likely to admit mistakes.
I freaking love OXO products. Why? When you browse the kitchen utensil aisle at target you have a choice:
Do you go for the cheap ass $1 dishbrush or do you splurge and get the awesome OXO brush? Time and again I think OXO does a great job at delivering a quality product that puts up to all the crappy abuse I dish out.
Most large corporations wouldn't even bother with an article like this. OXO is simply trying to stay true to their roots. I respect that.
As do I until I made the mistake of buying their kitchen timer which has one redeeming feature (many hours of timing - most are limited to 90 minutes) and sucks in every other way possible: buttons that don't work well, bizarre modes (clock, timer, expired timer, repeat last time) and a hard to read display.
It's a shame that Quirky would take to the streets like that. It comes off as childish and combative rather than as scrappy and willing to go to bat for their inventors.
It's impossible for us to know all the facts of this dispute, but from the outside it looks like a childish move on Quirky's part, and a mature response from OXO.
This seems pretty obviously a calculated publicity stunt. And it worked. I'd certainly never heard of Quirky before. Now I know not only who they are but that they stake their brand on protecting small inventors. That message will probably outlast any remembrance that they essentially smeared a beloved company. From that point of view, I say congratulations.
But OXO handled it brilliantly and turned it into a PR coup of their own.
I've heard of neither Quirky or OXO before reading this. Now I know that OXO make cool designed products, while Quirky are the sort of company I would rather not do business with.
[+] [-] danielamitay|13 years ago|reply
Quirky[1] went straight for the "justice" aspect in their post without presenting much info or even a cursory discussion of related patents.
[1] http://www.quirky.com/blog/post/2013/01/rise-up-quirky-seeks...
[+] [-] georgemcbay|13 years ago|reply
I'd TL;DR them down to "Whatever your bright idea is probably isn't as original as you think. If you think nobody else has thought of it you probably haven't looked very hard, or if you're very lucky the numerous other people who thought of it at the same time as you or before you never pursued it".
We all live in the same world (now more than ever), we're all influenced by the same things and IMO ideas are more tied to a time and the zeitgeist than they are to any person, every personal and historical "bright idea" I've ever encountered backs this up in my experience.
This is why ideas are a "dime a dozen" and execution is everything.
[+] [-] mosselman|13 years ago|reply
Very gentleman like response and correction, well done OXO.
[+] [-] MartinCron|13 years ago|reply
And the whole thing feels cheap and desperate. I like the idea of being scrappy and unorthodox, but one corporate entity protesting another? It just smells terrible.
[+] [-] dasil003|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ChuckMcM|13 years ago|reply
I really enjoyed OXO's response. I wonder if you see that someone is trying to create something out of nothing, how to blunt that? The OXO response seems to try for that, a bit low key, sort of 'kids will be kids' kind of thing.
[+] [-] jessaustin|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bcoates|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mosselman|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smsm42|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mikegirouard|13 years ago|reply
> Ideas are limitless and patents expire for a reason: to encourage competition, innovation, and the evolution of new ideas that ultimately benefit the end user. If patents never expired, we would have only one car company, and the cars they develop would likely not be readily available and affordable to so many people all over the world. Imagine that.
Good show.
[+] [-] krschultz|13 years ago|reply
I find it strange that Quirky is playing up the "david vs goliath" angle. If you've been in both of their offices, Quirky actually feels like they have more money.
More importantly, if Quirky wants to be a billion dollar company, they are going to have to do something a whole lot more innovative than a better dust pan.
[+] [-] mason55|13 years ago|reply
The crazy thing is that they make eight and a half different products per employee. When you think about the fact that you're talking about physical products, that's crazy.
[+] [-] user-id|13 years ago|reply
http://www.quirky.com/blog/post/2013/01/quirky-stands-strong...
[+] [-] unknown|13 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] philwelch|13 years ago|reply
http://www.oxo.com/AboutOXO.aspx
http://www.oxo.com/UniversalDesign.aspx
[+] [-] rm445|13 years ago|reply
On searching, it appears not to be, and the US OXO brand was 'invented' in 1990.
[+] [-] zem|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] adamkiss|13 years ago|reply
I see what you did there.
+1
[+] [-] fruchtose|13 years ago|reply
[1] http://www.quirky.com/products/36-Broom-Groomer-Broom-Cleani...
[2] http://www.google.com/patents/US20120260453
[+] [-] benzofuran|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jrockway|13 years ago|reply
That said, this sounds insane to me. Why would you spend money going to war with a competitor over such a trivial matter? ("OXO copied a patent that we also copied. Help, help, I'm being repressed.") Only to lose in the end? I don't get it.
One other observation: excellent application of Betteridge's Law of Headlines.
[+] [-] jcampbell1|13 years ago|reply
I think the Quirky people genuinely thought they were ripped off. They wanted to be seen as the small company of inventors being ripped of by a much larger company. Unfortunately, they lacked enough introspection to realize they have done worse, and now they look like hypocrites.
[+] [-] rickdale|13 years ago|reply
Side note: I ordered a bunch of stuff from quirky the first time I saw the site and almost all the the stuff I got is really complete crap.
[+] [-] MartinCron|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] misleading_name|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] onemorepassword|13 years ago|reply
The ball is in Quirky's court now. If they have any shred of decency they will at the very least admit that they completely overreacted and that the case is more complicated than they claimed.
I don't expect that though. There is something horribly "off" about the lame way Quirky dressed up a PR stunt like genuine protest, the kind of people that do that are not the kind that are likely to admit mistakes.
[+] [-] DanBC|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jtchang|13 years ago|reply
Do you go for the cheap ass $1 dishbrush or do you splurge and get the awesome OXO brush? Time and again I think OXO does a great job at delivering a quality product that puts up to all the crappy abuse I dish out.
Most large corporations wouldn't even bother with an article like this. OXO is simply trying to stay true to their roots. I respect that.
[+] [-] andrewljohnson|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rogerbinns|13 years ago|reply
As do I until I made the mistake of buying their kitchen timer which has one redeeming feature (many hours of timing - most are limited to 90 minutes) and sucks in every other way possible: buttons that don't work well, bizarre modes (clock, timer, expired timer, repeat last time) and a hard to read display.
[+] [-] JohnBooty|13 years ago|reply
It's slightly juvenile, but you know what? Quirky swung first; they don't get to complain when somebody swings back.
Kudos to Oxo.
[+] [-] eagsalazar2|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cedricd|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mistercow|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tomerv|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kemiller|13 years ago|reply
But OXO handled it brilliantly and turned it into a PR coup of their own.
[+] [-] rrreese|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jfarmer|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nnnnni|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nnnnni|13 years ago|reply
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