Quote:
Premeir was ran by Mr. Thomas, who owned several patents used in leupold scopes, especialy the scopes used by the US olympic shooting teams (IE the boosted scopes) after dicks passing leopold severed all ties, cause premier was underselling all the dealers (they bought them for jobbers prices and sold them cheap) due to Mr. having them over a barrel on the boosts.
You couldn't be further off.
I was a consultant to Premier Reticles, and assisted them in some patent problems... Premier sold scopes for the same (and sometimes more) than the mail-order competition.
The relationship was severed as a business decision by Leupold - Leupold made several thousand scopes with a reticle that was patented by Premier Reticles, without Premier's permission... (A very stupid move).
Mr. Thomas sued Leupold and won. They got legal expenses, and triple damages (a LOT of money).
Premier had no choice - if they didn't sue, the patent would become public property under the Non-defense/abandonment part of patent law.
The bean counters, and the new product manager decided to sever the connection with Premier, because they wanted to expand in the custom reticle business (which, if you have been following the Leupold line, they have done), and Premier just about owned that market with Leupold scopes.
When someone dies, their patents don't disappear, they become the property of the estate, so all of Thomas' patents are still in force, and the property of his family, who still runs the business.
Unfortunatly for Leupold, Premier lost Luppy, but gained S&B, and the military left Leupold, and went with S&B.
S&B has been better for Premier Reticles.
What goes around, comes around.
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