No Monopoly on Copycats

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In my post yesterday about the Foley’s pencil with a Watermanesque riveted clip, it wasn’t the clip so much that led me to wonder about what association might have existed with Waterman.  It was the history of the Foley name in connection with Aikin Lambert decades earlier which pointed me in that direction.

Once the Ferris patent expired, riveted clips were fair game.  The most prolific manufacturer to follow in Waterman’s footsteps was Marathon – but we’ll get to that one later.  The point is that there were other companies without Waterman ties which used the Waterman riveted clip after the patent expired.

For example, there was this one, which Rob Bader brought to the Chicago Show for me a couple years ago:

This poor thing doesn’t have much going for it, aside from that clip:

“Inlico” it reads, at least as far as I can tell.  I’ve got nothing on this one.  There’s no Federal trademark filed for the name, and nothing extraordinary about the pencil which would have been patented.