Store “Steals” American Inventor Wrench Idea

Corporate America can really be a cruel place for the little guy. It will chew you up and spit you out if you let it and this time, we check out an American inventor who claimed that he was being picked on by one of the biggest and oldest names in the game, that name being “Sears.” However, he wasn’t about to just sit around and take it!

Now, if you’re familiar with the giant known as Sears, you know that they have had their own in-house tool brand in Craftsman, a brand that many believed to have been keeping the company alive. Recently, Sears has been forced to sell Craftsman but that certainly wasn’t the case when the story was taking place.

Dan Brown, the owner of Loggerhead tools, describes himself as a man who was determined to “make it in America” and with the invention of the Bionic Wrench, a wrench that could replace up to 14 different wrenches with a single tool, a tool that he would sell to Sears and sell an abundance of, it looked like he was at least off to a good start with reaching his goal of conquering the American dream

However, when the following year, he would hear of Sears selling their own brand of the wrench, and an advertisement would pop up for that Craftsman branch of the same design, according to Brown, the litigation would begin and Loggerhead Tools, would attempt to recoup the losses from this alleged counterfeit wrench.

Even though, years later, the “knockoff” created by Sears would be deemed by a judge to not directly violate any patents, it still seems like a greasy situation to me. In the long run, Sears would win this lawsuit but it would appear as if the cost was just one of many that have begun the sinking of the Sears ship as a whole.