Trijicon Sues Holosun To Prevent Import And Sale Of Optics
BY Herschel Smith
4 years, 4 months ago
A Michigan weapons maker is seeking to halt imports of what it says are cheap Chinese knockoffs of its battery-powered pistol sights.
Trijicon Inc. filed a patent complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission on July 29, saying that Holosun Technologies Inc., of Los Angeles County, is working with a manufacturer in China to sell “red dot” sights that replicate features on which Trijicon has held a patent since 2013.
While the Trump administration has made intellectual property protection a key plank of its policy towards China, patent cases such as Trijicon’s are subject to detailed legal procedures. Ben Langlotz, a gun patent attorney with Langlotz Patent & Trademark Works LLC not working on the case, said there are multiple patents on red-dot sights, spanning a variety of characteristics.
Trijicon claims its sights have housing with increased durability and easier use. The technology is used in Trijicon’s Specialized Reflex Optic, which has a recommended retail price of $749. The most expensive Holosun sight referenced in the complaint goes for about $471, its website shows.
Trijicon, whose biggest source of revenue last year was from federal law enforcement agencies, said in its complaint said that its sights are used by hunters in competitions and for target shooting. The market for guns and related products has boomed amid rising social unrest in the U.S. this year.
Trijicon also filed a mirror suit in federal court in California, but that’s likely to be on hold until the ITC case is done. Agency investigations typically take 15-18 months, while a typical patent case in district court lasts two to five years.
I have mixed feelings about this. First of all, if Holosun did in fact steal trade secrets or infringe on patents, they deserve to be shut down in the U.S. Theft of intellectual property harms not only investors, but workers as well. It has gone on for far too long and should be stopped.
I hope the facts are carefully presented and the judge circumspect. Because on the other hand, I despise that Trijicon’s main customer is law enforcement and not the general public.
I also despise the fact that Trijicon is so expensive, and for that reason alone I’ll probably never have a Trijicon scope or sight (Here, to compete with the Trijicon RMR, I hope that Vortex can come up with a pistol red dot sight better than 3 MOA and do better on price point). Competition is as sacred as intellectual property rights. Theft should not be tolerated, but competition should be encouraged. It would seem to me that the notion that a patent can hold property rights to dots, reticles and magnification is absurd.
So let’s say that Holosun had stolen holographic sight technology from EOTech, that would be a clear violation of law. To the best of my knowledge, only EOTech so far can make claim to holographic sights. Correct me if I’m wrong about this.
Here is the California docket and complaint, and here is the patent in question.
On August 8, 2020 at 12:21 am, Georgiaboy61 said:
@ Herschel Smith
Re: “I hope the facts are carefully presented and the judge circumspect. Because on the other hand, I despise that Trijicon’s main customer is law enforcement and not the general public.”
“I also despise the fact that Trijicon is so expensive, and for that reason alone I’ll probably never have a Trijicon scope or sight (Here, to compete with the Trijicon RMR, I hope that Vortex can come up with a pistol red dot sight better than 3 MOA and do better on price point). Competition is as sacred as intellectual property rights.”
Given those sentiments, perhaps you’ll find my experience with Trijicon products to be of interest. A friend who was retired U.S. Army special forces (he was at that time my gunsmith) recommended Trijicon to me, and I also knew about them from my time working in the retail FA industry, as well as reading industry publications and so forth. Long story short, I had the coin at the time, and an ACOG down at the local Cabela’s caught my eye, so I bought a new TA11H-G 3.5×35 with green horseshoe 5.56/.223 BDC. Thereby hangs an interesting tale…
First, to the pros: Whatever else may be said about them, ACOGs are built like tanks and are legendary for their ability to take punishment in the field and still work. Truly “soldier proof” (Marines, too, ask your son).
Trijicon designed the ACOG to have as few moving parts as possible, in order to aid durability. The optic was of fixed 3.5x magnification, without any sort of diopter adjustment or fine focus. Worked OK for me, but that might be an issue for some. The optic was designed for use with 5.56/.223-caliber AR-pattern rifles/carbines, with a BDC graduated in meters out to 1,000m. The green center dot inside the green horseshoe is designed to be zeroed at 100m with M855 62-grain ammunition. The reticle was/is also available in red.
Illumination via a fiber-optic photo-collection tube during daylight hours, and via a tritium insert during the hours of darkness. The ACOG was designed to be NVG-compatible. These models need no batteries (there are now ACOGs and other similar optics in their line which are battery-powered).
The ACOG was designed around the Bindon aiming concept, usually summarized as “shooting with both eyes open.” 3.5x to 4x magnification being strong-enough for medium-long-range use but still precise-enough for close range/CQB. Some operators/users add a reflex red-dot 1x sight atop their ACOG expressly for CQB use.
Properly set-up and used, there is little doubt that the ACOG works – and works well. A brief account illustrates the point. During the mid-2000s, complaints against the U.S. military began coming into the International Red Cross and other agencies alleging war crimes, i.e., specifically that U.S. Army and Marine occupation forces in Iraq were killing insurgents execution-style with head-shots. In due course, these complaints and charges were acted upon by the military, which investigated these claims, which were found to be groundless.
What had actually happened was that Army and Marine combatants had become so proficient with their AGOG-equipped M16s and M4s that they were scoring routine head-shots against enemy forces at ranges well-beyond those thought to be possible.
One finds that there are a lot of serving and former soldiers and Marines with very fond memories of ACOGs used during their time in the sandbox.
Detriments of the design: (1) No diopter or fine focus adjustment. If the optic doesn’t work with your particular eyes, you are out of luck. (2) The photo-collection tube is so efficient that the reticle is often too bright, even painfully so, during daylight hours on sunny days. Users have had to use tube, rubber tubing and other field-expedient means to cover or shield part of the tube to dim the reticle somewhat. (3) Particularly on 4x models, the eye-box isn’t all that generous. Consequently, the user has to have a consistent cheek weld for optimal performance, and eye relief must be set-up correctly. (4) The expense, but if one is working for the government,then this isn’t an issue. (5) Although Trijicon literature is not always very clear on this point, it is very important to choose your model/reticle of ACOG carefully. If you choose the wrong barrel length/muzzle velocity, reticle, or caliber, the BDC and other features on the reticle may not work, or may not work optimally.
This is where my personal ACOG-Trijicon story comes in, because the ACOG I purchased at Cabela’s made no mention whatsoever of these considerations, only that it was suited to rifles/carbines in 5.56/.223.
I discovered these details when I did some shooting with my ACOG atop an M4-pattern semi-auto only carbine at various distances using various types of .224-caliber ammunition (M193 55-grain Ball, M855 62-grain Ball, and 75-grain BTHP Match).
The ACOG performed great out to 200 meters, but as the distances lengthened past that, to 300, 400, 500 and 600 meters, I noted that the BDC consistently shot well-over the point of aim. By as much as 3-4 moa or more. M855 62-grain FMJ/Ball green-tip, which is the load for which the BDC was optimized, shot three feet high at 600 meters. This is from a supported position, on a windless day with ideal conditions, using a rifle known to be sub-moa capable.
Mystified by the data, I rechecked my set-up and repeated it. Same results. I decided to call Trijicon customer service/tech support. I had wanted to ask them some questions anyway, so why not?
I asked the tech support rep if he would share the subtension data for the reticle (the drop valves of the hash-marks in inches, MOA or mils), something which is common in the industry – in particular with premium optics – but he said that Trijicon did not share such data with civilian customers. Whereupon, he blamed shooter error for the problem. I also asked about some windage or related gradiations in the reticle, seeking clarification as to their intended use and value, since the literature which came with the unit did not explain what they were or how to use them. Again, I was rebuffed.
I was pretty unhappy by this time, seeing that I had dropped more than a grand on the optic, and expected better service. I complained that this wasn’t what I considered good service/support, and the rep basically said, “Sorry, but we can’t help you. You should just sell it…”
By this time, I was miffed enough to want to resolve the problem regardless of the money, so I designed an index meter to allow me to reverse-engineer or recreate the values of the markings on the reticle. I took those values to my pal Dmitri over at Primary Arms, who was kind-enough to look at them. A day or two later, he got back to me and said that the drop values were really weird and that the reticle was defective or had been installed in the wrong model of ACOG.
Around this time, I also learned of the good people at Military War Fighter, a website devoted to serving military customers. They were/are considered experts and preferred dealers for Trijicon, and say – with some justification – that they know ACOGs “better than Trijicon does.” They were the ones who told me that every ACOG is specific for a given caliber/cartridge, muzzle velocity/barrel length, and bullet type. And that if you do not select the correct type, your expensive optic won’t work.
For example, an ACOG whose reticle is calibrated to work with 5.56×45 NATO 62-grain FMJ (Ball) at 2875 fps muzzle velocity, will not be accurate at long distance if it is mounted atop a 20-inch barrel AR15 with M855 at 3030 fps. The shots from the longer barrel will go over the target.
At last, I had solved the mystery to my satisfaction. Trijicon had either sold me a defective optic with the wrong reticle installed, or they had neglected to label the box at all, that muzzle velocity, bullet style/weight and other factors were critical in the performance of the optic. In fact, Trijicon may have taken the decision to deprive civilian customers of the needed instructional and other literature which is routinely supplied to LE/military clients. Or perhaps the DOD had insisted on such an arrangement. It would not be the first time.
Shortly afterwards, I sold the ACOG (for a decent price, thank you) and haven’t looked back since. I now use products by other companies, having had enough of Trijicon’s abysmal customer support and indifferent attitude to civilian/non-LE/military customers. Vortex Optics and Primary Arms get most of my business these days; both are willing to bend over backwards to keep their customers, civilian or not, satisfied. Dmitri M., the optical engineer over at PA, even does custom work for clients schedule-permitting, if they are having trouble matching a load to one of his reticles. And he shares reticle data without complaint.
Trijicon’s products are of high quality, make no mistake, but they are not as revolutionary as they once were. Their competitors haven’t been standing pat, and many companies now offer fixed-power optics and low-power variable optics with similar capabilities to the ACOG, and at prices substantially lower. For years, the finest tactical reticles in the business were, as often as not, found in Trijicon products, including the ACOG, but these days, the revolutionary Primary Arms ACSS has stolen Trijicon’s thunder. So much so, in fact, that Trijicon licenses the ACSS for some models of their ACOG.
Trijicon’s business model since their inception was to secure government military/LE contracts, and have these serve as the basis of their revenue stream. Over the years, they’ve gotten rather fat and happy over there on lucrative LE/mil contracts, and don’t devote a heck of a lot of time or effort to serving “civilian” customers, since those folks form such a small slice of their economic pie. Their tech reps and customer support people could afford to be dismissive of a “mere civilian,” since guys like me aren’t where they butter their bread anyway.
Not being an insider, I don’t know what Trijicon’s profit margin is for each ACOG sold to the Marine Corps, the Army or whatever – but something tells me that at a grand and a half retail, they aren’t starving.
It will be interesting to see what happens to Trijicon when their patents expire on the ACOG. Right now, most of the alternatives which are “copies” are pirated, or cheap knock-offs from the PRC. But what will Trijicon do when their competition can use their tech? Do they have some hot new tech waiting in the wings to save their balance sheet and government contracts? Time will tell.
On August 8, 2020 at 6:35 am, John said:
On Trijicon and its marketing focus:
For years back in the 70’s, Colt took its AR 15 Rifles off the market for civilian sales because
it was catering to military and police markets only and had gone PC before anyone knew what that was. I was no fan of the rifle but found Colt’s arrogance so irritating that I never purchased a Colt product for all these years. That market eventually weakened for Colt and that is why (I think in the 90’s) it went bankrupt. Yes, I do hold grudges for a long time.
On August 8, 2020 at 8:19 am, Ratus said:
It’s an obviously BS “it’s a small open red dot sight, but with buttons on the side!” design patent that shouldn’t have been granted.
They are not suing Sig for their nearly identical made in China sights.
Also, Vortex has the UH-1 Gen 1 & new Gen 2 holographic sights, so EOtech isn’t the only company producing them.
On August 8, 2020 at 9:02 am, Ned said:
Thanks for the insight on the ACOG Georgiaboy61. I also have satisfaction with PA optics.
I found it interesting like Ratus mentioned that Holosun is the only one targeted out of the plethora of red dot manufacturers.
On August 8, 2020 at 10:38 am, John said:
Georgiaboy61 gets my applause.
On August 8, 2020 at 10:48 am, Sanders said:
The Trijicon has always been out of my price range. The one time I was able to afford one, I had 3 teenaged girls living in the house. It was when someone was selling surplus ACOG’s on ebay. The surplus ACOGs had the Bible verse on the side of them that some atheist made a big thing out of and the DoD got rid of them. I believe they were selling for a “Buy it now” of $300, back then.
No matter what someone thinks of them, they are entitled to their intellectual property, protected by patent.
I had also heard the exact same story about war crimes accusations Georgiaboy61 related above. The context I heard it in was in relation to our troops in Bosnia.
For myself, I’ve been quite pleased with Burris and Primary Arms products. Haven’t been able to break them, yet. Don’t plan on breaking them, either, but stuff happens.
On August 8, 2020 at 8:23 pm, soapweed said:
per the comment by John regarding Colt….. I will never purchase a Colt product as they were the sobs supplying only the North back in the War of Northern Aggression…..grudge …. you bet!
On August 9, 2020 at 5:57 am, Roger J said:
Soapweed, appreciate you man, but Smith & Wesson was right there with them, their little .22 short revolvers riding in the vest pocket of many northern soldiers.
On August 9, 2020 at 12:21 pm, sirlancelot said:
After talking with a supervisor who fought overseas he convinced me to go with the Acog. Local shops tried to sell cheap Chinese knock-offs, but my coworker said you have to get the genuine thing.
Had to travel a little bit to find a authorized dealer. The young man behind the counter was also a returning vet, very helpful and supplied a wealth of information. The Acog was a sturdy little tank and the glass was very clear. However as mentioned the eye relief wasn’t very forgiving. The older Acogs had a rudimentary site on the top of them for close-in work. The salesperson told me that most soldiers just looked over the top of their ACOG to get a basic aim for close distances.
The newer a Acogs now come with the ability to mount a micro dot on top of them. This set the price close to $2,000 !!! The young vet told me Acogs are great for fighting in the mountains of Afghanistan however if you were going to be doing close-in work EOTech would suit one better. Throw in a magnifier and you have the best of both worlds at half the price and still have a quality optic.
Was also shopping for a 308 optic and was leaning towards a Leupold. Once again after half an hour of discussion and comparison now the proud owner of a new Vortex scope. When laying out that kind of cash it’s best to seek the advice of an expert and not just some fat loser sitting behind the counter at the local gun shop.
Have no problem buying American Products and paying for quality, but if a company’s only interested in military contracts and turns their nose up at civilian purchases ? Have a nice day. I’ll buy from your competitor
On August 10, 2020 at 3:15 pm, Bad_Brad said:
Optics is a crazy market with obscene markups. I’ve seen some optics marked up 100% over dealer pricing. (Suggested retail). I could never get an ACOG to work for me. Went through plenty. Target acquisition sucks, at least for me. I have a couple AR’s in 300 black one of which is wearing a 2 MOA dot Holosun. The other a Trijicon MRO. The MRO retails real close to $600.00. The Holosun retail about $120.00. I actually like the Holosun a little better. Plus the damn things got like 55,000 hour battery life.
Trijicon does have an extremely underrated optic. Their Accupoint in 3 by 9 by 40 with the Mil Dot reticle is a bad ass piece of glass for the 600 yard crowd. Super clear and fairly inexpensive. Plus the tritium gives the scope excellent low light performance.