Drop-in trigger groups are hardly new…and that’s now a legal fact as of last week. Mossberg had been issued a patent on the idea of a drop-in cassette trigger in 2007. In 2016 they decided to start enforcing that patent more stringently by filing a lawsuit against more than a dozen drop-in trigger manufacturers including KE Arms, Timney, and Franklin Armory. Word now comes from a source close to one of those respondents that Mossberg’s patent has been invalidated, which will most likely mean the end of those suits.
The ruling states that through a combination of a couple existing patents Mossberg’s patent for their drop-in trigger was obvious and non-patentable. The biggest issue was a Taiwanese patent for a drop-in cassette trigger for the M16 platform, combined with patents for Jewell and others.
There’s no word yet as to what Mossberg will be doing in regards to their actions against the dozen or so trigger manufacturers. Stay tuned.