Yeah, if the museum staff weren't watching him carefully the whole time, he'd walk out like a cartoon and empty out his pockets at home with the entire museum collection falling out
Patent infringement cases today: *legalese, dry, boring, probably indicative results.* Patent infringement cases in the 1890's: "Not only are you wrong, but we built a bunch of weird-ass guns to prove just how wrong you are, sir."
I gotta say, it's not a very persuasive argument. Winchester had to make a significant and almost comical effort to find and secure examples of these early pump actions, and so the assumption is that Bannerman did the same to "steal" the idea. Meanwhile, Winchester...simply had to go and buy a Bannerman anywhere in the US. So Bannerman seems far less likely to have stolen from Europeans, while Winchester is almost certainly stealing from Bannerman.
@@DB-pr4rc It's not the assumption that Bannerman did the same research in Europe to "steal" the idea. Winchester never needed to prove anyone stole an idea knowingly: it's the fact that under US law you may not patent any idea or thing that is "Prior art". Bannerman had to prove beyond reasonable doubt that no other person had *ever* made a functional pump action shotgun in order to patent the idea of a pump-gun: any evidence Winchester provided to the contrary, no matter how comical, was proof of "prior art". It's not a game of "Who stole from who" it's a game of "If *anyone* in Europe, or anywhere else, ever pulled of a working design that's significantly similar, before Silvester Roper, then no one can patent the same "art" in the US, and so Bannerman can't have a monopoly, and it's open season for Winchester and *All* others to use this pre-existing design." Bannerman unwittingly paid another man for his patent for a thing that, legally, could not be patented because it was old tech. Winchester just needed to point this out. It's why Edison went very quiet about the rights to the patent for the lightbulb in the US: an Englishman called Joseph Swan pointed out that he had been making them first, but thought the idea too simple and obvious to bother patenting for several years until after Edison started making them, and he politely pointed out to Edison if he, Swan, ever told the US patent office this, Edison would lose his monopoly despite his patients. So, after some suing of each other Edison, bought him off to stay silent, the two merged their electric companies, and "EdiSwan Bulbs: lighting the empire *and* the republic" became a brand. Patent law in the Gilded Age is wild. The fact Ian has more than one video on "we made this weird gun to prove a point in court" is the gift that keeps on giving: look at this Maxim vs the Colt-Browing potato-digger lawsuit video. It's so neat.
@@DB-pr4rc Bannerman was *claiming that the patent covered the idea of using a pump action to cycle the bolt.* With patents, you need to cite the prior art, as a matter of "inspired by this and that, I had the following idea." The European patents showed that someone else had had the idea first. The Spencer/Bannerman patent didn't cite any of those European patents, so it was invalid on it's face.
It is indeed a marvel. When we stripped one we had the user handbook open and, I kid you not, once you get to a certain point there is a page with a red stop sign that says go no further unless you're a trained armourer. You can see the page from the manual in our G11 dissaembly video. The Magot, however, is next level haha
While you're at it, please collaborate with Winchester or Uberti to have a few thousand reproductions of the Magot rifle manufactured. I'll buy the first hundred or so.
@@sawyerawr5783 you know the Colt m1895 "potato digger" MG? Well, Maxim was trying to say that his patent for a gas operated machine gun included the gas port in the barrel and sued. So Colt made a version of the Potato Digger that ran off of muzzle blast, but otherwise used all the same working bits. Ian did a video on it. Edit: video for you. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-A85S8u7L4j8.html
Bannerman’s ‘sue EVERYONE’ approach smells of an attempt at lawfare. If that was what he was indeed going for, it was a poor choice given the primary target.
@@Misericorde9 not an uncommon approach, back then. Ass-kickings like Bannerman received have taught later litigators (see you later, litigator..?) to be more selective.
@@lairdcummings9092 It's totally different now, the fashion is to abuse laws disney muscled into existence, buy rights to an old song you have no connection to, then sue every second songwriter you can find claiming that their three similar notes constitute breach of copyright. Oh wait...
One of the criteria for granting a patent is that someone with expertise in the field can take the patent application and produce a working example without further explanation. Clearly the Krutzsch patent was extremely well executed.
When I was a kid there was a game that consisted of a spring-loaded frame compressing inward on a couple of dozen round pieces of different sizes (and shapes?). The challenge was to remove a piece at a time until it went sproing, compressing in and scattering the remaining pieces. Small kids loved the "destructiveness."
@@donjones4719 We had that game, and the idea IIRC was to put the pieces IN before it popped. And yes, all of the pieces had a unique shape. I'm thinking it was called "Concentration" -- I can see the thing in my mind, lots of yellow and orange plastic... I think my parents might still have it even (unless they cleared out the games & toys that the grandkids are too old for now).
My guess is, someone from the museum, or a previous owner, intentionally put it together that way to show off the internal parts. They have no intention of firing it, so they set it up as a display.
I honestly would’ve paid to have been in the courtroom that day when Winchesters lawyers brought in those prototypes. The look on Bannerman’s face must’ve been priceless.
They were probably pretty surprises - but US trials generally don't allow for "surprise evidence" as far as I know, so they likely saw them for the first time before they actually reached the courtroom.
@@Khrrck 🧐. True but Bannerman wouldn’t have had an inclining of an idea what they were until the Winchester attorneys entered them as evidence and even then the full reason and explanation as to why they were evidence wouldn’t have come up until after the defense had begun their rebuttal.
Or they just told the wood working guy "If we're going to work night and day until this weird clockwork pump rifle thingie works, then you're going to work night and day on the stock and pump handle. Fair is fair. We all get to go home at the same time" and he just sighed and went "so checkered, lacquered, horned, customized sweeps, finest knot free wood I can find in a week and what ever else I can come up with to keep myself occupied?"
Actually, G11 is the Lorenzoni system from 17th century + caseless cartridge A. Nobel 1890 patent + automatics. Krutzsch: enter to the chat Kalashnikov: leave from the chat Adeptus Mechanicus: enter to the chat Church of the Broken God: enter to the chat Da'at yichud: enter to the chat
The Krutzsch is absolutely awesome, thats a neat action that would be really cool to see in action, too bad we don't have any of those old winchester tool room guys to whip up another one
@@kenbrown2808 for real, if a gunsmith got his hands on it for a day i’d bet they’d have enough info to make a copy (of the second gun shown in the vid not the spaghetti one)
As someone who has gone through many crash-development programs, I have to wonder how much time Winchester's shop had to put this together. "Here you go, Bob, here is a sketchy patent in another language. We need your team to build a completely functional copy (or two/three) in X days. Oh, and make the slide handle pretty. I'm sure you didn't have any plans for the next Y weekends, right?"
I suppose it's possible that prettified piece could have been a prototype part for the 1897, or a custom one-off one of the workshop guys made for an 1893. Or else that's how the patent-holder drew it, and they were gonna follow that patent to the letter.
Well the wood part were probably done by a carpenter who would have had a bunch of time to screw about while the gunsmiths were performing an act of god getting the guns to work.
That lawsuit was fought in the 1890s, so we wouldn't have to fight it today. Personally, I think patent is a net loss in terms of innovation over time.
Interesting that Winchester was able to win by showing these existed in Europe. Wonder how successful someone would have been doing something similar for that patent for the bore-through cylinder since that design was already in use in Europe for pinfire cartridges.
It is telling Winchester couldn't find or buy an example of a functional gun. Probably because no one was dumb enough to actually try to make one... even a prototype.
Agreed. It seems a bit sketchy from a strict legal perspective. It does, however, uphold the grand old American tradition of Big Corporations abusing their gargantuan resources to stretch the spirit of the law right up to the breaking point. (See also: Microsoft.)
I would also like to research how foreign patents won Wnchester an infringement case in America. Pretty sure they're separate for a reason. Fishy......
looking at the divot on the dust cover, it seems as if the pump pushes the cartridge back onto the extractor on the cover, the extractor forces the cover up and shoves the shell out, and the mechanism on the trigger looks as if it interplays somehow with the magazine
update ; talked to a few friends, sent a few emails, and apparently the mechanism is overly complex, but the normal operation would be that the follower is removed from the magazine, the magazine is loaded with proprietary shells with a slot cut into side of the shell, when loaded, you then compress the follower and insert it behind the shells, closing the buttstock. from there, each trigger pull somehow presents a shell from the magazine, which is picked up by the rod attached to the pump handle, and it slides into battery. you then release the trigger, and pull it again, firing it and presenting another shell. the expansion of the brass is supposed to grip the rod tight enough to allow for extraction, and the spring on the dust cover is supposed to remove the shell from the rod and push it out the top, where it should fall harmlessly to the left or right. im getting this from a friend who collects old manuals and he supposedly talked to another collector of those same manuals. take all of this with a _huge_ grain of salt cause its third hand, but i felt it worth posting because it fits the mechanisms we were shown.
Ian is terrified to take apart a one of a kind piece of history; meanwhile I break into a cold sweat when fumbling around with ANY hammer or trigger assembly and praying to 3 or 4 deities simultaneously that a spring doesn’t go sailing across my office or garage 🤞🤞
I wonder if the Winchester machinists looked at those two weapons and took a lesson or two away. Even a poor design is a result. Sometimes just seeing a different perspective on the same problem or system can spark innovation. I once had instructor turn on a light in my head with the quote “this is my way, what is your way? THE way does not exist.”
I've come across eureka moments for past unrelated projects while working out problems for the current project. There's always something to learn, just have to be flexible and abstract enough to be able to see that solution apply elsewhere.
Ian: "look at this gorgeous Viper STEN Conversion and the Prussian Bittner 1896!" The internet: "oh my gosh... The most steampunky guns eva! " Ian: ".. Wait for it..."
You know you have worldwide street-cred. when you can go into one of the world’s best firearm museums, they pull a couple of ultra-rare, one-of-a-kind, obscure rifles off display, then tell ya, “Let us know when you’re done with them Ian” and you proceeded to film today’s presentation. Well done, Sir. Fascinating.
They built guns from patent drawings to prove a point? Amazing story. Imaging being given such a task. A patent drawing is so far from actual manufacturing plans. That prototyping shop must have had very skilled workers.
Imagine that bullet point on your resume. "Transformed a patent drawing into a functional firearm for a court case in X weeks." Interviewer: 🤯 you're hired!!!
I've seen LPL comment under at least one Forgotten Weapons video. It's not really surprising, as guns are intricate mechanisms, often designed with some interesting flaws and they usually contain great engineering. The overlap between Ian and LPL is pretty large, as is the overlap in audience :)
Winchester to tool shop: 'Build one of these.' Tool shop: 'Won't that cost about the same as the annual GDP of Canada?' Winchester: 'Don't worry about it, Bannerman will be paying.'
Hey Ian if you ever get the chance could you do a video on the Winchester wildfowler 4 gauge shotgun. I think it would be a cool video and also I think it’s at the Cody firearms museum.
Very interesting! I just spent the week figuring out why a Mosbergh 500 bolt was sticking closed, finally figured that out ,then just watched this video! Oh my word. I could fiddle with that action for months LOL. On a side note Bannermans island was on the East side of the Hudson river from Cornwall NY where I grew up. We could spend the whole day exploring the castle and grounds. Some areas were covered in old helmets 6' deep. Thousands of bayonets' and tons of military accoutrements. A few years later there was a fire that gutted the castle. My father gave me an old rifle from the basement of a house in Newburgh NY, also within sight of the island. A trapdoor rifle in 50/70. As new from when it was converted from the musket. I was in my teens by then and ordered brass from Dixie Gun Works. Had to sell it when I got married. My 1921 Thompson gun turned into a new refrigerator. I wish I was young again!!!!!!LOL
"Story Time At The Cody Museum" should definitely become a themed event!! I would love that... Seriously though what interesting firearms and the backstory is fascinating! I would love to visit Cody and her wonderful Museum :-)
Given that these were exhibits in a lawsuit, the components Ian saw as magical and mysterious comprise: the wizenbanger, which protects and guides the framizamer in timing with the cranzflinger. In other words, to confuse and make sure nobody wanders off the curated tour/ legal narrative. Rather like a nuclear power station control room, lots of extra dials and levels to make sure the regulators don't ask too much.
Even that double-curved pump handle is more than I could ever come up with (let alone make). The mechanical skill and intelligence that went in to actually making these is on another level. Stunning stuff. And thank you, Ian, for bringing it to us!
What always amazes me about these one off guns is as someone who has only lived (as with most of us) in the mass produced world that they even exist in the first place. That people can take bare hunks of steel and turn out things that have perfect curves and intricate machining essential by hand turning dials on a lathe/mill. In production there are millions of dollars of machines each set up with jigs and patterns to make one little cut and radius. These are built with none of that. No CNC, just skill. So many modern one offs and prototypes are blocky, unfinished, and look like made from just minimal machining of off the shelf stock and components. It's just rare to see complete, fine machining, looks like ready to sell, prototypes anymore. Everything looks like a barrel off of this, a pistol grip off of that, and all bolted to angle iron from Home Depot.
Gun Smiths and Firearms companies haven't exactly stopped doing that you know. Plenty of overly complex and useless designs still flood both patent offices and marketplaces to this very day.
Like the old hand tool wood working and engraving by hand. They put in a ton of effort, delicate, precise, and soulful talented master level work into each and every gun. Like each gun was made entirely by hand and treated as a work of art
