Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Rick Jamison???

Mule Deer, I didn't mean to imply that anyone needed to defend anybody else. I look back at what I wrote and realize that I had actually "dised" Winchester in exactly the same way that I was complaining about. I'm usually smarter than that, usually. Anyways, it was the underlying current of the earlier comments that got me going. That is, just because an individual is involved in a law suit, does not mean they're just seeking monetary reward. He may have been standing up for himself and doing what he felt was right. I do not know, and I have no way of knowing one way or the other.

I did enjoy Jamisons writing though.

I don't know who was right and who was wrong in this deal, but this reminds me of the story, apparently true, about the guy who came up with the idea for the intermittent windshield wiper. He stupidly took it to GM (or Ford?) and offered to sell the idea. Probably for a pretty small sum. They "blew him off" but, a year or so later, they came out with this new idea, an intermittent wiper. He sued them. They had dozens of lawyers on call and he had almost nothing. He kept at it, literally years and years, and finally, after all the appeals were exhausted, he won!

There had to be more to the story than has been discussed here. If all Jamison did was to duplicate earlier work, then even if he had been granted a patent through the oversight of the patent office, Winchester could easily have gotten it voided based on prior art. Does anyone know the patent number? We could read the patent.

If you google up "Rick Jamison patent" you can read the patent disclosure and the patent itself, #6,354,221.

The patent actually cites the work of Mashburn and others. According to the disclosure, it does not attempt to copy the "short fat" concept in general, but mentions certain ratios of length to diameter plus shoulder angle as being necessary for the purpose of maximizing powder burning efficiency and minimizing throat erosion.

In otherwords, he patented a certain shape for short fats and explained why, in his opinion, that shape was optimal.

Read it yourself. I think we may be giving him a bum rap.

Here's the patent..

http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=6SgQAAAAEBAJ&dq=jamison+cartridge


Very difficult to defend against patents from what I hear. Typically runs $100k in the software industry to fight even a stupid one, and it's rampant here with obvious patents everywhere you look. Winchester might just have looked at the books and paid him off, they were going to lose money one way or another even if they were right.

I very much liked the guy's writing and techy approach to shooting. He had every bit to do with my love of the 45-70 and the Marlin 1895.

I miss his stuff.

Mule Deer,

Do you know Rick Jamison well enough to let us know if he's is doing well or not? That would be my concern if he has been "black balled" as a gun writer. Assuming that is why he isn't writing for magazines?

After reading the patent I understand how it covered a new
invention. If a particular case shape indeed increases the
energy by 10% that is new.
Good Luck!

Rick has apparently been blackballed by the shooting press. I never saw where he did anything wrong. He came up the hard way like most of us. On the other had, it seems as if Jim Zumbo has been forgiven and welcomed back with open arms, at least by the phony outdoor TV shows. If given a choice, I would take Rick every time.

I agree 100% with that statement..

AMEN!

Ricks articles were the main reason I bought Shooting Times over the years.. Don't buy it any more..

Maybe a dumb question but does Rick Jamison own "Jamison International Brass"?

idahoguy,

I haven't seen Rick since the last time he was at the SHOT Show several years ago, but hear through the grapevine that he is doing OK.

An over sight by the US Patent Office is very, very unlikely. It takes years for an engineer or scientist to become proficient in a giver area of patent review. Intense research is conducted by the engineer or scientist in charge of the review & after making a preliminary decision is reviewed by superiors. I have friends that work for the US Patent Office as engineers with over 20 years experience. This is not a typical inefficient government agency. Who every is applying for the patent has to pay for the research leading up to the granting or denial of the patent. Our employment office places patent attorneys & secretaries with private law firms. In this case Mr. Jamison would have hired a patent law firm to research if a basic for securing a patent even existed. This is not a cheap investment. If the patent firm decided there was a basis for a new patent then a very complicated & costly submission would be made to the US Patent Office. The US Patent Office makes a profit each year & employees reviewing patent applications have a quarterly & annual goal.

As noted before, there is much to this story, both favoring and disfavoring Jamison�s position. He did experiment with a cartridge concept that used ratios of length and volume to increase efficiency; and he patented this concept. Further, he did a considerable amount of experimentation and documented the results which formed much of the basis of his patent application.

Prior to this, Mashburn, Ackley, and others experimented with the short fat concept, although they did not define it as such, nor patent it; Jamison did. One close situation is that of Roy Gradle who developed the 7mm Gradle by removing the rim of the 348 Winchester and cutting an extraction groove in the case, blowing it out and necking it down. However, the patent process requires that the patent examiner examine all relevant patents (may be several hundred or more) to see if the pending patent�s claims infringe on a prior patent or claims made therein. The examiner, however, cannot know of any �prior art� or undocumented experimentation unless he (or she) is thoroughly familiar with the field and not just with existing patents.

I�ve worked with (not for) the Patent Office for several years and have not met a single person who shoots (undoubtedly there are some, but I�ve not met them (although Stuart Otterson who wrote the excellent book �The Bolt Action� was a shooter and reloader), so it is unlikely that most patent examiners reviewing Jamison�s claims would be aware of any �prior art� by others. This �prior art� might have been determined to be in the area of common knowledge and therefore un-patentable. One example of such common knowledge is starting a fire using gasoline and a match; this has probably never been patented but if I try to patent it, my claim would be denied, since it is such common knowledge.

Had a knowledgeable shooter who was familiar with the �prior art� been the patent examiner, the result might have been different in granting the patent. Jamison certainly experimented with cartridge shape and ratios and documented the results. He made a claim that resulted in a patent that he defended. The result financially hurt the company infringing on the patent. However, was it Winchester (USRA) or Olin (Winchester Ammunition) that paid the claim?

As an aside but related Mic McPherson has a patent for a shoulder angle case volume size relationship. I think Savage does or did chamber guns for his design and someone was supplying brass and maybe ammo. So Jamisons approach although new isn't unique.

The patent process is a crap shoot. You might get a patent examiner who really has a lot of experience in that field, and you might get some dolt. The policies on patents change, too. Until a few years ago, you couldn't patent software or any "mathematical algorithm", and very few processes. Now, they issue patents for software methods that have been common knowledge for 30 or 40 years.

Then they will deny a patent on something that has nothing remotely like it. I saw a very novel device for gently transferring severely burned patients with multiple fractures from on gurney to bed, and to wheelchairs. It was denied, because, "it could be used for sunbathing." What!

But when a patent fight gets into court, there will be deeper examinations of prior art, and there is more involved than the patent. When the parties had discussed licensing the design, then one goes off and uses the design without a contract, there is going to be a host of issues.

� FWIW, a mutual friend told me that Rick's latest wife is a very wealthy heiress.

� If Rick'e share of Winchester ammo's income were a threat to W's bottom line, there'd soon be no more infringing ammo from Winchester.

does she have a sister?

Has that claim been verified by actual experience? When I read the patent it sounded like a bunch of BS to me.