Friday, September 28, 2018

Century Arms sues XTech Tactical over trade dress of US Palm

In the aftermath of US Palm going under, XTech Tactical has been working with the molders for US Palm's plastic parts.  The molders were told that they couldn't sell their thousands of excess US Palm magazines by what now appears to be Century Arms, so XTech Tactical and the molding company redesigned the magazines with improvements: a removable floorplate, improved texture, and metal reinforced feed lips (and had to destroy the old magazines in impressive fashion).  Today word came from social media accounts and Soldier Systems that Century Arms since they now own the rights to the US Palm brand is attempting a Glock style trade dress suit against XTech.  This isn't due to any patents or other intellectual property, just that the product has the same "distinctive" look to what is now their brand.

XTech Tactical is also about to release their US Palm style grips with storage doors (which the originals are often bringing $100+ prices).  Honestly, I was waiting for these grips to come out before I placed my order of Mag47 magazines since I have a decent number of original US Palm AK30s.  When word came of the suit, I ordered some magazines from XTech.  While I am somewhat worried about another small company having the same issues of US Palm, I still feel we need to support AK companies that support us with great products.  Century Arms certainly is the 800 pound gorilla in the room and can make the US Palm brand last if they really want to, but they have always had issues with customer service and overall quality, which was my first worry when I heard they officially had restarted the brand.   They are apparently still months from coming to market with their US Palm products.

Right now, XTech is actually on the market with their products and is very much customer focused.  I put a note of support and my Instagram account name (MattCFII) since they have been very active answering my questions in comments there.  Within minutes, I had a DM saying thanks for the order. The magazines themselves have been getting excellent reviews, like from RobSki at AKOU.  I can't wait to get mine!

No comments:

Post a Comment