Okay, I had no real desire to enter the name calling war, but I am getting a little tired of the Model T analogy.

The analogy makes no sense because the Porsche, as far as I know, was not designed by a former Ford employee who had access to trade secrets. Perhaps a little lesson on the law of intellectual property is needed.

There are patents and trade secrets. A patent protects one for a limited period of time from someone copying the idea or design process. However, in addition to being restricted in terms of time, it requires a public explanation of the patented product, making it easier to legally copy once the patent expires. There are also other restrictions that I won't discuss. That is why many products are never patented. Presumably Ragozin has not attempted to patent his sheet making process.

If a an idea is not patented, it can legally be copied. Thus, if there were no patent for the Model T (and I don't know whether there was or not) anybody could buy a Model T, take it apart and copy it piece by piece (this is called reverse engineering, which is perfectly legal). Similarly, I could buy Thorograph Sheets, take the information provided on this board, and copy the sheet maing process, and JB could do nothing about it (presumably though I have insufficient information to do that from purchasing his product).

Now, trade secrets are a different animal. It is unlawful to use proprietary information obtained through a confidential relationship. Now, I have no idea whether that is what JB did, and I don't want to speculate, but I let's discuss a hypothetical.

An employee of Thorograph takes JB's database and everything he learned about figure making and makes an identical product. Is that illegal? Probably. It depends on what steps JB used to keep his information secret, whether the information is readily available to the public and whether the employee had a confidential relationship (most employees do). Is it immoral? Well, that is for each individual to decide.

My point in this is not to accuse JB of anything. I have no idea what information he had access to, what information he took and whether that information was proprietary or not. What I do know is that the Model T analogy is stupid, and hopefully will not surface again.

BTW, while we are talking about law. JB's assertions that Ragozin must be guilty of slander because he never "answered" his public letter is even more silly than his Model T analogy. No lawyer would ever advise a client to answer such allegations, as it could only be used against him in the future. If JB really wanted an answer instead of a publicity stunt, he would have sued.