KEE buys Smart Parts

[Tony Harrison]

March 30, 2011. KEE Action Sports, LLC. announces today that it has acquired the intellectual property portfolio of Smart Parts. KEE believes it was critical to paintball that the portfolio stayed inside the industry. KEE’s President and CEO, John Robinson, said that “KEE is committed to growing paintball participation industry-wide and that KEE intends to use the intellectual property assets in a manner consistent with that goal.” In a letter to be sent out shortly, KEE will inform current license holders how it intends to continue to work with them under their current license arrangements. KEE welcomes contacts from other companies interested in pursuing a partnership relating to its new IP assets.

 

[Robbo]

Hmmmmmm .....I suppose it was predictable but it'll be interesting to see how their future product portfolio reflects this recent acquisition ... The guys at Kee are professional businessmen not ballers, they obviously have ballers in their midsts but it's non-ballers calling the big shots.
Kee are gradually consolidating their market position and their interests seem to be expanding into many areas which pretty much means they're in for the long haul ..... they are our industry's resident bull elephant both in size and financial backing; I suppose it's good for our sport that they're expanding but let's hope they don't get too big ... too big is not good, not good for anybody, least of all them.

 

[Scrumpy]

Now call me a naive idiot but what constitutes intellectual property? I know smart parts owned alot of patents (much to the chagrin of quite a few people) but would these bu included in intellectual property?
Sorry if that's a rediculose question or I've proven myself to be a bit of a fool.
Nick

 

[Megatron1]

Patents, trademarks, copyrights...they all belong to KEE now.

Now we just gotta wait and see how it affects GoG paintball...

 

[Rabies]

The Utility patents are the obvious thing. They are the assets of SP with real business value. They won't care too much about trademarks, design patents, trade dress etc. In an industry where companies are churning out a new gun every year or two, existing designs and brands don't hold too much sway, especially after being dormant for a year or so as they have. But the utility patents are generic enough to cover many current and future products, are the subject of continuing royalty agreements with other companies, and can be used to deter other patent holders from suing KEE.

All the rest, if not already held by Gog (some of the IP may have already been creamed off before this deal), will be of less interest to KEE so they'd probably sell them back to Gog for a fairly reasonable amount...

The real question is, now that KEE hold all of these all-encompassing (if of dubious validity) patents, what will they do with them? Do they sit on them as a simple deterrent, or will they be more proactive in seeking revenue, or suppressing competition, in the way that SP used to be?

 

[Missy-Q]

I expect they may want to buy the other 2/3 of the important patent, possibly.

 

[SAMUEL.D.RYAN]

Licensing here we go

 

[Robbo]

Sorry if that's a rediculose question or I've proven myself to be a bit of a fool.
Nick

I think that last line would be more accurate if you changed the 'or' to 'and' ...