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If you’re not a dyed in the wool knife knut, this will probably seem awfully inside baseball to you. One knife company virtually duplicating the design of another company’s blade and the aggrieved company coming back in its own sweet time to turn the tables and exact a measure of sweet revenge served ice cold. Who cares, right?

Well you should. Harassment of a respected industry observer and reviewer by a company that doesn’t like his opinions can happen in the firearms business, too. Oh wait, it already has. And just like the FIREClean people, the brain trust that runs Microtech seem to be blissfully unaware of the Streisand Effect

So now an otherwise little known, years old dust-up between two knife makers that was long since over now has new life. And because of Microtech’s insistence on litigation, this will — one can only hope — reflect poorly on the company, whatever the merits of their case. And Kershaw may sell more Natrixes as a result. 

Dispite the fact that the original post has been removed from Everyday Commentary, you can read a re-posting of Anthony Sculimbrene’s commentary that torqued Microtech’s shorts here

In the mean time, here’s The Truth About Knives’ Clay Aalders’ take on the whole kerfuffle. Oh, and while I’m not really a sheepsfoot guy, I’ll be buying a Natrix just as soon as they hit the market. 

Microtech sues blogger for defamation over Matrix/ZT0777/Kershaw Natrix flap

By Clay Aalders

I want to start by saying that I hate lawfare – the use of legal action to hamstring one’s rivals in court as opposed to letting the free market decide. I was critical of Cold Steel when they sued CRKT. I was extremely critical of Cold Steel sending cease & desist letters to knifemakers over the use of the ancient Japanese term “san-mai” steel (CS does have a trademark over a particularly stylized, all caps logo with 3 parallel lines saying “SAN MAI “).

For those unfamiliar, there has been a long-running feud between between Microtech and KAI (Kershaw/Zero Tolerance/Shun) dating back to 2011 over the “uncanny resemblance” between the ZT 0777 (BLADE Show 2011 “Knife of the Year”) and the Microtech Matrix. In fact, Microtech admits that the Matrix was modeled on the 0777 as a result of a direct challenge from KAI representatives.

The situation had calmed down as both knives were retired from their companies’ respective lineups, but flared up again this year when Kershaw released the Natrix at this year’s SHOT show – in what Microtech has called a football-style “late-hit”.

Now Microtech has sued blogger Anthony Sculimbrene of Everyday Commentary for defamation and related offenses over an article he wrote referring to the Natrix as “The Greatest Knife of All-time”, mostly due to its not-so-subtle multi-pronged dig at Microtech and designer Anthony Marfione. You can read the complete Microtech response to the Natrix here.

I will get back to this in a minute, but for background on the initial beef, this YouTube video shows the “uncanny resemblance” between the ZT 0777 and the Matrix. In fairness to Microtech, there are details of the locking mechanism that they claim are different enough to have been awarded a patent, which are not mentioned in this video. But I will let you make up your own mind on this.

I don’t think that it is much of a stretch to believe that there is a fairly significant similarity between the two knives.

As I said, the situation had died down until this year when Kershaw released the Natrix at the SHOT Show. The Natrix is a fairly similar knife to the other two, but as both Kershaw and ZT are under the KAI umbrella, that’s certainly fair-game.

The alleged low blow was actually a “two-fer” related to the name. There is the obvious similarity between “Matrix” and “Natrix”, but wait, there’s more…

From Wikipedia:

Natrix is a genus of colubrid snakes. Four species are in the genus. They are collectively called grass snakes and water snakes. However, some other snake species known as “grass snakes” and “water snakes” are not of the genus Natrix.

The genus includes:

In the words of the Blogfather, “Heh™”

This explains the whole “snake in the grass” reference that blogger Sculimbrene used in his piece, that has among other remarks caused so much consternation and led to the Microtech lawsuit.

From KnifeNews:

The suit was filed on January 31st and Sculimbrene subsequently removed the post on February 4th. According to the complaint filed by Marfione and Microtech, the story was a “purposeful attack” that had a lasting impact on Microtech’s commercial reputation. “Publication of the aforesaid article by the Defendant caused false and disparaging statements to be circulated to an audience that includes wholesale and retail buyers of Microtech products,” the complaint alleges.

“Sculimbrene has uttered and published and distributed defamatory statements as to plaintiff Marfione. In particular, Sculimbrene has stated that Marfione has stolen designs and committed theft of intellectual property, that Marfione is lazy and greedy, that it is Marfione’s nature to steal, that Marfione is a ‘snake-in-the-grass’ (meaning that he is a deceitful and treacherous person), that Marfione has been adjudicated as having infringed intellectual property rights of others, that Marfione’s actions are comparable to those of a notorious convicted murderer named Jared Lee Loughner, that Marfione declined an express invitation by Sculimbrene to comment on the statements [contained in Exhibit A] and that Sculimbrene’s statements about Marfione have the imprimatur of official action.”

I missed the original article, but I will assume that the remarks in question are accurate given their appearance in a legal complaint. I think that the “snake-in-the-grass” comment would be fair game if it was used in context of explaining the Natrix name (as it apparently was).

I honestly can’t comment on any pattern of design infringement on the part of Marfione/Microtech beyond the ZT 0777/Matrix example, which I do believe was over-the-line. That said, in Microtech’s defense I think most double-edged OTF knives are rip-offs of Microtech, so maybe they are particularly sensitive.

As far as the claim that Sculimbrene’s piece caused “lasting impact” on Marfione/Microtech, I find it to be somewhat dubious as the suit was filed so closely after the piece was written.

Frankly, by filing suit, Microtech has breathed new life into the controversy. If anything it highlights a situation that was to that point little more than trivia to knife-geeks. I for one was trying to let the situation lie because the legalities of the whole situation make my head explode.

Stay tuned, this looks to be far from over.

 – – – – – – – –

Once again, you can read Sculimbrene’s original post here

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29 COMMENTS

  1. You will probably be fine. In America, you can sue anyone for anything at anytime. Doesn’t mean you’re going to win big.

    • As a (retired) lawyer, I can tell you that plaintiffs always win, even when they don’t. Most plaintiffs want money, but some want retribution, and all of them want to be in court. Defendants just want to go home.

  2. That blog post sure looks like he was calling a knife designer a greedy, lazy thief. Which, if untrue, could be considered defamation.
    However, if it’s an accurate characterization…

  3. Yeow! My eyes glazed over!?Yep anyone can sue. ‘Merica ya’ know. My wife has had her ideas stolen right off her blog(as have some of her fellow decorating bloggers). I sure hope you guys don’t go EZ on gun reviews…

  4. A “loser pays” system would end this kind of bvllsh!t. Let’s see if the ABA will go along with it.

    Yes, that was a joke.

    • So if you are walking through Walmart and are a victim of a tort that left you injured, you sue Walmart to be made whole and lose. You think you should have to pay your attorneys plus Walmart’s attorneys for an injury that is clearly Walmart’s fault? Walmart won because your attorney is not as good as Walmart’s team of attorneys but that is your fault now and they put a lien against your house, your car, everything but the family bible and your cool with that? Loser pay is distinctively European.

  5. Microtech OTF knives have to be the most copied and bootlegged knives of the 21st century. It was only a matter of time before people over there started getting pissy.
    Imagine there was 25 or so companies like Taurus making cheap copies of your designs as fast as you could think them up and due to geography it was impossible to sue any of them. Then, to add insult to injury some third party industry “insider”decides to make a mission out of defaming you and eluding to you having stole your own designs. The difference being you CAN sue the big mouth because he is legally accessible. Would you do it? OF COURSE YOU WOULD.

  6. Has anyone read Kershaws description of the Natrix. The whole thing is written as a slam on Microtech and just plain funny.

  7. Well. Did the blogger lie or not? According to microtech, they were given a challenge. According to the blogger – they were thieves. If the blogger lied his ass off, then I really don’t care that they were sued.

  8. I’m not taking any side here but lol come on really?

    “I will assume that the remarks in question are accurate given their appearance in a legal complaint”

  9. A $600+ knife is about as stupid as a $4,000 gun, but then again people spend a bunch of money on stupid things all the time. To each his own.

  10. Do knives serve a utilitarian purpose, like clothing, and therefore are usually not eligible for a patent?

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