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A WARNING BEWARE RIP OF CLAYMORE BY BENSLEY

C

CJ14

O.H.
This weekend I was asked to update a Claymore. Unfortunately this Claymore is a copy made by Bensley Electronics, and somehow they are using a rip of Claymore 2 circuit board.
If you are offered one of these beware it is not made by me.

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That’s pretty shocking, I find it disgraceful when people try to rip off other people’s hard work. It doesn’t look like they still exist, which is good in one sense (because they can’t rip off anymore of your or anyone else’s work) but sadly leaves you with nobody to go after for intellectual property rights.
 
Unless it is a registered design (unlikely, since it has little distinctiveness) or has patents securing some technology aspect, there is little you can do. If it was really important and the brand was copyrighted and or trademarked then you could have an action for passing off....but you have to find someone with something worth having, to go for.

Otherwise imitation is a form of flattery and all that.
 
JensenHealey said:
Unless it is a registered design (unlikely, since it has little distinctiveness) or has patents securing some technology aspect, there is little you can do. If it was really important and the brand was copyrighted and or trademarked then you could have an action for passing off....but you have to find someone with something worth having, to go for.

Otherwise imitation is a form of flattery and all that.
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True but it is still stealing nether the less and bloody wrong, and it is you the public that in the end suffer.
I have seen this shit most of my life and when I patented something i.e. the MC stage in the older Magnums I won the case.
I have a patent on a SSR and so far nobody has used it apart from those with permission to use it Root2 Solid State Relay's. But the cost to protect oneself form thieves is crap money for old rope and then it can take years to sort out with more money to the Law Makers. A truly shit system that helps the rich and powerful to become more greedy for skills that they have none of.
 
Surely Inca Tech is protected by a registered trademark? Patenting electronic design for things as tried, tested and in the public domain as amplifiers would be exceptionally hard as you’d need to prove uniqueness, but that is a blindingly obvious breach of a trade mark and would certainly be actionable.
 
That is a bloody liberty and no doubt! Even patents are completely ineffectual these days though as the Chinese will flout them at the drop of a hat and there's nothing you can do about it...
My new Transconductance phono stage uses genuinely unique circuitry which I believe I could apply for three patents on... Am I going to bother? No way! I couldn't afford to, it wouldn't put off the far eastern copiers and at the end of the day the world market for >£1K phono stages is probably a fraction of the total sales for just hairdryers and in just say Barnsley... ie no real commercial value.
 
Tony L said:
Surely Inca Tech is protected by a registered trademark? Patenting electronic design for things as tried, tested and in the public domain as amplifiers would be exceptionally hard as you’d need to prove uniqueness, but that is a blindingly obvious breach of a trade mark and would certainly be actionable.
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Indeed. I doubt many clothing or fashion items carry patents but putting someone else’s label on them is highly illegal... doesn’t stop crappy people from doing it but still.
 
This is very old, and it seems unlikely that a straight (sic) fake would be manufactured in Essex with the fakers name and address on the back.

Is there any possibility that it is sort of legitimate? That a later owner of Inca Tech commissioned it? The only Bensley Electronics I can find appeared in 1990 and disappeared in 1998.
 
Hi Paul,

I am the original owner of Inca Tech, and I have no knowledge of this amp.
The same thing happened with the Inca Tech Quatra I gave a permission to Oxford Acoustic to use it but Mr. Bullen and Kaufman took the design and sold it under the Lescon Banner as the Quatra. I took them to court also and won. Then they had it made in the Far East, leaving me with a huge legal bill. Nasty people out there very nasty greedy brain dead people.
 
Some years ago, I was in a nearby dealers and was approached by a gentleman who claimed to be
involved with Inca Tech. He was of ethnic origin and apart from that, I don't remember too much
about him. He asked me to design an amplifier for him and promised to send funds to secure the
deal. I'm still waiting.

Coincidentally, I have one of these Bensley amps in my shop at the moment - left for repair some
time ago. I wondered where the Bensley came into the equation.
 
CJ14 said:
Hi Paul,

I am the original owner of Inca Tech, and I have no knowledge of this amp.
The same thing happened with the Inca Tech Quatra I gave a permission to Oxford Acoustic to use it but Mr. Bullen and Kaufman took the design and sold it under the Lescon Banner as the Quatra. I took them to court also and won. Then they had it made in the Far East, leaving me with a huge legal bill. Nasty people out there very nasty greedy brain dead people.
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It's a mystery.

It was intriguing that the details for the defunct Bensley Electronics shows an address of 106A FURTHERWICK ROAD, CANVEY ISLAND, ESSEX, S88 7AL And you appear to have started Inca Tech on Canvey Island.

There's no excuse for stealing your idea and design, and exploiting the hard won good reputation the Claymore and other products have, and it is hard to see how this particular effort could be worth while, unless it was built from surplus parts or something. Were Bensley a supplier to Inca Tech?
 
The address on the amp I have here is XXIIX East Street, Rochford, Essex.
Dunno why they should have resorted to Roman numerals.
 
So then, here we have a mystery where this amp was manufactured in a similar location as where Inca Tech began,
uses what appears to be a similar if not identical layout to the original and presumably sold through dealerships as
there are now a couple of these at least in circulation - the one in Colin's possession and the other one here.

I there something we should know.?
 
LesW said:
So then, here we have a mystery where this amp was manufactured in a similar location as where Inca Tech began,
uses what appears to be a similar if not identical layout to the original and presumably sold through dealerships as
there are now a couple of these at least in circulation - the one in Colin's possession and the other one here.

I there something we should know.?
Click to expand...
I did wonder about that. They predate eBay so where were they sold? (Rhetorical question).
 
The problem was the PCB layout people I use did work for many people including Magnum who stole a A Class design and the Oberon from me whilst I was in the USA, I suspect people helped them selves via these CAD people.
And I was not in the UK. I was having fun elsewhere designing big SMPSU,s in San Diego, Huntsville and Boston, oh sorry Portland also, sorry Dave.
So a easy grab I suspect.
Let face it our name was also used to do a CD player the Inca Tech Katana and he went on to do Isotech.

As I said no original thinking at all.

This is the second one I have come across and the first one was a fried mess, it was sold to Simon Lomax of you know who. I advised him to send it back. (wish I never now)

So will wait and see and report back.

More about Bensley can be found here (sorry Tony) http://theaudiostandard.net/thread/3944/warning-rip-off-claymore-bensley?page=1&scrollTo=116177
 
Looking through my old notes I found the original scribbles, and see the PCB Part No are the same i.e. IC200, but the components have changed.
 
I always wanted to hear the Claymore. Over 10 years ago, I bought from Ebay the same amp made by Bensley. When I received the amp, one channel was found faulty and it was returned to the seller. I found the output transistors of one channel were blown. I never had the chance to listen to it.

A few years later I found in hififorsale, someone advertised some new old stock of the same amp.
 
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