Glock's patents expire?

[atek3]

So Colts 1911 patents are LONG expired as are the armalite/fairchild AR patents those designs have been modified and improved upon to the point where modern incarnations scarcely resemble their ancestors. When will glocks patents on the G17 expire, enabling hundreds of manufacturers to turn out new and improved super glocks. (honestly I can't think of much I'd change about them, but just for the sake of conversation)

atek3

 

[Black Majik]

what is the patent on? how to make an ugly gun?




sorry i had to

 

[atek3]

good one, but actually I think steyr holds that patent

atek3

 

[denfoote]

I think that has been addressed with the Springfield XD and the elusive Alchemy Arms Specter!! I wonder if S&W is still paying for the Smegma???

 

[BUSTER]

why does it matter all the gun makers have copy cats in thier stable,of course when you set the benchmark for reliability and performance in any product the lesser quality manufacturers will always pick up on what they haven't been able to do over the last 92 years

 

[natedog]

That'd be sweet. If a company like NORINCO could turn them out quickly, the price would be signifiganlty lower than a factory GLOCK. It only costs what, like $75 to make a GLOCK?

 

[pauli]

i'm reading through some glock patents right now.

http://www.biggerhammer.net/patents/US04539889__.pdf was assigned in 85, and appears to cover the single-and-a-half-action trigger/striker. it also contains numerous technical errors in the background section, and illustrations of possible glock grip designs that look a heck of a lot better than the g17.

http://www.biggerhammer.net/patents/US04825744__.pdf issued in 89 has pages of... more talk about the safe action. and how simple this whole design is. and some sort of bragging about having a magazine (uniformly refered to as a clip, just like in the last patent). also mentions adjustable springs. not sure on my terminology here. the one that fully cocks the striker.

http://www.biggerhammer.net/patents/US04893546__.pdf issued in 90 looks to be exactly the same as the previous patent. whatever.

from what i can tell, the patents just cover having a striker sitting at half cock all the time. why on earth would anyone want to copy this?

 

[Sean Smith]

I'm sure lots of people are just DYING for a gun that has exactly the same bad trigger pull has a Glock.

 

[pauli]

i think it will be THE hot new mod for 1911's!

 

[Black Majik]

actually i like the looks of the steyr aug's...

 

[Nightcrawler]

Norinco already makes Glock clones...heh...

The XD, however, is NOT a Glock clone. The striker-firing method the XD uses is considerably different. Gaston Glock did NOT invent the striker-fired pistol, though it is an Austrian invention. I think the first was the Roth Steyr pistol of 1912.

 

[jc2]

Glock:

Lockwork - modified Browning copied from SIG

Frame - Polymer copied from HK

Not really a whole lot to patent (except unsupported/oversize chambers).

 

[natedog]

Really? How much do they sell for, and from where? Does the quality compare to Austrian GLOCKS?

(Crossing fingers, hoping that they aren't prohibited by the prohibition on NORINCO guns...)

 

[capt_happypants]

At least it's a consistently bad trigger pull.

I'd really like to see a slimline 9/357/40 Glock, based around the G36 frame, but they had to go off and develop the 45 GAP and G37.

 

[mmike87]

Single and a half action. Funny.

A lot of people distinctly prefer the XD's "true" single action trigger to the Glock's design. But it is indeed a preference.

My first gun was almost a Glock - but when I handled other guns the SIG P228 fit my hand better, so I got it instead.

If indeed the primary triat that give a Glock it's "Glockness" is the "Single 1/2 Action" trigger design, then there may not be any copies. Even a lot of people who love Glocks admit the trigger could be better. I am not sure of the supposed advantage to this trigger design, but it certainly didn't feel that great, to me.

Especially when you take into account the new lighter action DAO trigger systems (SIG DAK and Para's LDA to name just two) I wonder where the benefit is.

 

[Nightcrawler]

Norinco's Glock clones aren't sold in the US, as are none of their pistols.

In any case, if the article I read was true, they're primarily sold on the black market. In addition to being the largest gun company in the world, Norinco is also the largest black market supplier of weapons.

Norinco clones a lot of guns and makes them without paying any royalties or rights. The 1911, the Remington 870, the Colt Woodsman, the Broomhandle Mauser, the M14, on and on...

 

[Gary in Pennsylvania]

Additionally, doesn't Gaston keep a tight knot on the details of his polymer composition recipe and the manufacturing process?

 

[flatrock]

If you're looking for a cheap glock clone, there's always the S & W Sigmas. They stole enough of the Glock design that Glock successfully sued S & W over the design.

The Sigma's had some quality control issues initially, like many guns do. They still don't seem to be up to the Glock's quality standards from what I hear, but if you get a good one, they can be good guns. They also have a more fully supported chamber than the Glocks.

 

[patentnonsense]

It's easy to do online patent searching on the US Patent Office web site uspto.gov - the direct link to the search query is
http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/search-bool.html.

(Patent searches at http://ep.espacenet.com covers more countries, though not all.)

A US patent issued more than 17 years ago (1987) is presumably expired (BUT some patents have had their terms extended, so you can't know for sure until you check a particular patent).

Apparently the Glock patents don't list a corporate assignee, but following are the patents which list Gaston Glock as inventor:

PAT. NO. Title
1 6,643,968 Pistol with a device for determining the number of shots
2 6,478,202 Holster
3 6,276,581 Holster for a firearm
4 6,230,414 Rear sight for firearm
5 5,485,695 Laser aiming device
6 4,893,546 Automatic pistol
7 4,825,744 Automatic pistol
8 4,539,889 Automatic pistol with counteracting spring control mechanism
9 4,475,757 Spade

Numbers 6 and 7 in this list still appear to have some lifetime left. I don't know which patents were involved in their lawsuit against S&W - perhaps someone can confirm?

 

[Rickg30]

The Tenifer process being available is what I am waiting for.

 

[valnar]

Isn't the Kahr design using a half-cock trigger?

Robert

 

[rbernie]

The Tenifer process being available is what I am waiting for.

IIRC, the Tenifer process is simply a name for a plasma nitriding (surface hardening) process that is not Glock-specific and is available from a number of specialty metal finishing shops.

 

[jc2]

The Tenifer process being available is what I am waiting for.

Stop waiting--the Walter P99 is tenifer treated.

 

[Rickg30]

rbernie. I ran a search and found a lot of companies that do the nitriding
but none for just guns. Have you used anybody?

 

[CZ100B]

Stop waiting--the Walter P99 is tenifer treated.

So is the Steyr M & S series.

Jeremy