I find the claims that P&G makes to be interesting, because unless something has changed, Dollar Shave Club does not actually produce or manufacture under license any of its own products, rather the service is about the delivery and cost mechanism, not the actual product received. Instead, they use products made by Dorco, a South Korean company, http://www.dorcousa.com/.
The 4X, for instance is the same as the Dorco Pace 4 blade system, including compatibility between the cartridges/handles. I think Dollar Shave Club may provide unique handles, but the razor blade cartridges themselves are made by Dorco.
> Patent infringement is the act of making, using, selling, or offering to sell a patented invention, or importing into the United States a product covered by a claim of a patent without the permission of the patent owner. Further, you may be considered to infringe a patent if you import items into the United States that are made by a patented method, unless the item is materially changed by subsequent processes or becomes a trivial and nonessential component of another product. A person “infringes” a patent by practicing each element of a patent claim with respect to one of these acts. Further, actively encouraging others to infringe patents, or supplying or importing components of a patented invention, and related acts can also give rise to liability in certain cases.
(If you think about it, of course importing is infringement. Otherwise, patents are worthless: anything patented would simply be made overseas, if they aren't already.)
I agree, and I think it's obvious that PG is only interested in using this as a means to damage DSC. I was asking if DSC could potentially use this as a defense in court, e.g. arguing that PG has a duty to go after Dorco first or at least simultaneously.
Edit: To which PG would probably argue that DSC is the largest distributor of the infringing blades and represents the greatest infringement overall.
On a related note, it's cheaper (per cartridge) to just buy from Dorco directly. I buy the Pace 4 cartridges in bulk.
It's a solid product, at a great price, with excellent customer service. I recently had a package lost by USPS (they got confused because someone had forwarded mail to my address), and after a single email to Dorco, they sent out a replacement order (despite the fact that they had nothing to do with the original package getting lost).
It is extremely telling that Gillette is suing Dollar Shave Club, a direct competitor, rather than Dorco the actual manufacturer of the blades themselves.
DSC is actually just a blade reseller, so suing them for patent infringement seems odd. Until you consider that this whole lawsuit may be part of a larger drive to either push DSC out of business or buy them out of business, in either case the cost of the lawsuit will contribute.
PS - As an aside I don't think Dorco's blades are as good as Gillette's blades yet. However I highly welcome a more competitive landscape in the cartridge blade market.
If Dorco is manufacturing out side of the US or anywhere that P&G's patent is valid and not selling them into a valid country P&G can't really sue Dorco. At that point Dorco isn't violating anything it's the company that imports them that is the first point something is really being violated.
No, you can order directly from Dorco USA and get their razors shipped to your door. I've done it, and the single price points and "add to cart" buttons should make that clear too. :)
"Distributor" might be a mistranslation or imprecisely phrased.
OR "Dorco USA" is a small US based distributor that licenses their name from the other company and imports Dorco razors and sells them. Might even be owned by Dorco but is likely not Dorco.
Maybe they're not selling razors there that violate P&G's patent inside the US only to markets outside the reach of the US patent? I don't know which product lines are actually in violation of the patent.
After getting fed up with the cost of razor cartridges I went and got a double edged razor holder and 100 Derby safety razors, and never looked back.
This seems to be one of those curious cases where (at least in Europe and North America!) almost everyone either owns an electric shaver or buys expensive multi-blade cartridges, and has done so for decades. But over time the value added by those cartridges — safety from children's fingers? Certainly not a closer shave — was nullified and actually made negative by their cost. Meanwhile I shave for €5 a year with safety razors.
Is the marketing of cartridges such a strong agent here that the seemingly superior solution is largely ignored? Or am I not seeing the appeal of a Gillette nine-blade turbo-smooth aloë-vera-coated hyper-cartridge?
I sometimes wonder if this phenomenon is limited to the West, and that the rest of the world happily shaves with cheap safety blades or straight edge razors.
Or buy a straight edge razor, a strope and a stone, and be done for the rest of your life. There's something to be said about shaving with a sharp blade every single time!
I am not sure if you are being sarcastic, but double-edged razors are similar in time and effort to cartridge razors. Straight edges are, however, substantially more demanding in not cutting yourself and in maintenance. (I switched from cartridge to double-edged a year ago and found them about the same, after having looked at straight edge and decided they were too intimidating.)
Straight edge razors are kind of like cast iron pans: there is a little more upkeep, but the amount needed is blown out of proportion by enthusiasts on the internet. For myself (with corse hair) upkeep means a minute of stropping before every use, a couple of minutes on a pasted strop every other weekend or so, and a barber's hone once or twice a year. It's certainly more upkeep than anything with a replaceable blade, but I don't find it too onerous; actually, I take pride and satisfaction in maintaining my tools so the time spent is worth it to me. As to cutting oneself, I can count on one hand the number of times I've nicked myself in 20ish years with a straight razor.
I was not being sarcastic. There is definitely a learning curve to using a straight edge razor, but it's not that difficult and not as bad as often portrayed.
Maintenance can be cut down a sub-minute per use by ignoring the folklore and cutting a few corners (I use a stone once a month for a few seconds (not considered normal) and only strop half a dozen times before each use).
I wouldn't use twin blade disposables to shave my arse (literally and figuratively).
You pay more for the gel strip, and comfort of excess blades. Safety razors are a legitimate alternative to cartridges, disposables are generally terrible compared to either one.
I assume by "old fashioned" you mean a safety razor, not a straight razor.
Safety razors are indeniably cheaper long term (although expect to pay $100 ish to get a good handle, brush, bowl, blades, and soap). You'll likely break even after ten years (assuming $1.50 cartridges Vs. 10c blades). You'll also likely receive a closer shave with a safety razor.
That being said... I did the whole safety razor thing. It was fun. But then I switched back to cartridges. Why? In order to get a good close shave with a safety razor while also minimizing the chance of nicks, cuts, and razor burn you need a good quality thick lather.
Unfortunately creating a good thick lather can easily take ten minutes. You cannot really use off the shelf shaving foam or gel because it doesn't provide enough protection for a safety razor.
So ultimately I decided I wanted shaving to be a 10 minute activity in the mornings, and not a 20 minute activity. Also creating lather isn't the most fun thing to do first thing after you wake up, in particular if you're working it hard (as you should).
Cartridges are quick and easy. They're the ultimate lazy man's solution. And you can use off the shelf non-foaming gels (e.g. "King of Shaves Alphagel", "Gillette Fusion ProGlide Clear Shave Gel") in the shower (and, yes, wet-shaves are a must either way, buy an inexpensive non-electrical anti-condensation travel mirror (i.e. you tip hot water into a compartment behind the mirror)).
I guess I'm lucky that my skin must not be very sensitive... I use a moderately priced safety razor handle ~$40-50 4 or 5 years ago and store brand menthol shaving foam. Old school Barbasol type foam. I rarely ever get ingrown hairs and have never had razor burn. What I did do, though, was basically buy one of every brand of blade that was available on Amazon and find the one that was the most comfortable, and now I don't deviate. Some were truly horrific, others were so close I couldn't tell which I liked more, but I've been using the Astra Platinum for the better part of 5 years now. I guarantee I've spent less than $200 in 5 years on shaving, when I was spending at least $20/mo on cartridges. The only time I use anything else is when I travel, I shave real good right before I leave and just bring a couple terrible disposables.
Like? Honest question. I have not shaved for many years and I am not planning to nor have I worn a suit since the 90s yet my clients are banks and big brands where the conference rooms are full with clean shaven suit wearing people. In the 80s I was told by my parents you cannot do business without shaving and suits as it was not allowed (one of the bigger IT consulting companies had a strict dresscode which forbade beards); now the people I deal with say they are allowed to do whatever but they do not out of fear to stand out and find me kind of brave (I am not: I hate wearing suits and I find shaving annoying).
I don't know where you're getting your $100 from. A cheap handle cost me $15.00, is perfectly functional. I've been using the same one for 5 years. I buy blades at 2 - 5 cents apiece on Amazon, and they last me the same amount of time that a more expensive quadruple blade costs. It doesn't take me 10 minutes to lather either, and I've used both shaving cream and shave soap without problems. I have an extremely heavy beard too.
An Omega boar bristle brush goes for <$10 CAD in my neighbourhood drug store. They also stock Proraso shaving soaps/creams, a container of which lasts me a good 1.5-2 years. Boar bristle brushes require a bit of prep to use, see https://www.reddit.com/r/wicked_edge/wiki/brushes#wiki_boar_.... I just throw it in the sink for a soak before I hop in the shower.
As with most things, it's easy to get sucked in and blow $100s on your setup, but you don't have to. I spent <$50 to get started.
I find that the thick lather isn't really the issue. The issue for me is that I need something slick directly on the skin. A good shaving soap will have fats in it that do this job, whereas a cheap shaving foam/gel will not. You can spend 5 minutes (cannot imagine needing 10) getting a good foam from a shaving soap, or you can be lazy and slap some moisturizing lotion directly on the skin and then follow it up with some cheap gel. If shaving short stubble, you might not even need the gel. It really just helps lift the hair. You can also replace the lotion with a shaving oil, or hair conditioner, or anything else that will keep the skin slick while you shave and won't be lifted off by the gel.
I prefer the shave I get with a brush and shaving soap to the shave I get with lotion and shaving gel, but I prefer the lotion and shaving gel with a safety razor to any shave I can get with a cartridge razor. The lotion and shaving gel doesn't take me any more time than just using gel, either, because I can shave more efficiently.
Try a soap stick like Erasmic or Arko. You rub the soap into your beard, then lather on your face. It's more convenient than lathering in a bowl and helps to lift the hair and fully coat it with lather. The soaps I mentioned are very cheap, but they're tallow based and give a very rich and oily lather.
Half the time I don't use any kind of cream at all; I just shave right after I jump out of the shower, heating the blade up and moving in short, tight movements. It's not baby smooth but the stubble is gone and i'm out of there in the same amount of time as with cartidges.
The protection you get from a safety razor is by technique, not what lubrication you use. A 30-degree angle and taught skin will trump improper form with the best lather any day.
I just use a gel with my safety razor and haven't had any issues. I shave my whole head daily too. I've been using a safety razor for more than 5 years now, and shaving my head for about 15 years though, so maybe it's just skill by rote.
That said, I always have some disposable ones handy for quick work, misses, or for shaving in the shower.
Same here. $20 handle, too. It took me a couple of tries to find a brand of blades and shaving cream that suited me, but the up-front cost was really cheap. I'm sure mileage varies.
I use a $20 safety razor from Amazon. It works better than any cheap disposable with off the shelf gel or foam. I don't use a brush and I don't lather any differently than I did with a disposable.
The safety razor does not shave quite as close but that turns out to be a positive for me (especially in area's other than your face).
I went whole-hog with safety razors for a bit in grad school, but now I just keep it simple. Use standard soap in the shower, apply with hands, and it's good enough (for me, at least). If you don't want to shell out $100 at Art of Shaving, you can buy a vintage safety razor on eBay for $20-30.
But I am talking about lathering at the start (5 ish minutes) and then several times as you shave to keep the lather in good order (1 minute here, 1 minute there, etc). Otherwise the lather goes flat half way through your face.
Wow, I'm at a total loss to explain why my own experience differs so greatly from yours: using ToBS cream, I've got lather in half a minute and I've lathered, stropped, shaved, and cleaned up in 10… chalk it up to the diversity of human experiences I suppose.
Out of curiosity, did you ever try using distilled water? Alternatively, did you by chance give any of the traditional brushless products out there, like Musgo, a try? I use it while traveling and have had good luck with it.
As someone with a coarse beard, safety razors are the only way to go. A safety razor blade from feather lasts 2-3 shaves, while one of those 4/5 blade things from gillette clogs fast, and dulls completely before 1 shave is over. Safety razors really don't clog, and they're much cheaper.
I bought a 50 pack of feather razors on Amazon for $10. I haven't bought blades since last year; granted I don't shave every day. I find I get around 4-5 shaves a blade.
When I shave (which is not often, aside from the neckbeard), I use an old, inherited Schick Injector[1]. I bought a batch of blades years ago on Amazon from Germany for a few bucks and haven't used them up yet - they never seem to actually get dull, so I just replace them when they start to rust.
Never really understood the purpose of shaving cream - hot water has always been plenty effective enough, and any type of soap or lather or cream makes a mess and leaves my skin oily.
I have a suspicion that, like women's cosmetics, hair shampoo, and neckties, shaving customs solely exist to vacuum money out of people's wallets and be inconvenient.
As a quick tip: you can also sharpen those blades on your arm hair - 20-30 strokes and you'll be able to feel a real difference once the blades start aging.
I stopped getting razor burn when I switched from disposables to a safety razor, and it's no less convenient. My main complaint was the high up-front cost for the razor but I'm now seeing starter kits in Wal-mart in the $20 range which IIRC included razor, blades, brush, and soap.
I just started laser hair removal on my face, and at $100/session for 2-6 sessions, it'll pay for itself in 1-3 years (I use a fresh blade every week). Plus no shadow/stubble.
I'm in the opposite camp. I tried Harry's. Twice. A year apart. Couldn't stand the blades. Poor shave and somewhat hurt. I do somewhat like their shave cream though but that's pricey to what I can find elsewhere.
So terrible. I upgraded to the highest price tier they had, and realized that I really wasn't saving much money over Gillette and they were just TERRIBLE blades. Like running sandpaper over your face.
Different folks have different skin but I find Harry's to be the most comfortable as well. The handles have a great feel too, it's not like you have an Xbox controller you're dragging across your face. It's a nice midway between a teenagers Gillette and a mans safety razor. The safety razor is also nice but a bigger time commitment.
Do they have any razors that you tend to hold more perpendicular to your face like the older 2-blade Gillette razors, rather than the 3+ blade razors that you tend to hold parallel to your face?
I've never even heard of such a thing. Suggesting that "butthurt" is homophobic seems way more homophobic than the term itself ever could be. Like gay people have a monopoly on butts?
it is valid but it is just being used to run them out of business. The actual patent violator is Dorco but they are a foreign company and it would be pointless to sue them. Dollar shave club is merely importing patent infringing razors into the US. But patent law allows you to sue anyone who imports patent infringing materials which makes sense because it can be hard to identify the factory doing the patent infringing but the importer is easy to identify but in this case it is clear who the manufacturer is but it is more useful to sue their competitor than to go after the factory
I find it slightly amusing when journalists call companies like Dollar Shave Club an "upstart". It paints this picture that they're this small scrappy startup when in fact they've raised $163M, founded in 2011 and air prime time commercials. But as compared to P&G's market cap of $220B, I get it, they're small potatoes.
I use two blades to shave - start with a "quality" blade (not Gillette) and finish with a cheaper disposable. It extends the life of both and gives me a very clean shave. I estimate that it's cut my blade costs in half since ditching Gillette. Oh, and don't forget the inexpensive Barbasol.
Have you ever tried using a safety razor? The blades cost pennies. I also find I get substantially less razor burn. Switching to shaving soap instead of aerosol cream keeps my total shaving cost to <$10/year.
I hadn't heard of DSC before and wish it was available in Europe. Would be interested to know how much of a streisand effect they are experiencing. And given the season that's in it, a year's subscription to this would make a handy gift.
All of this would be moot if people would just grow a beard and discover all the awesomeness that comes with it! Most of all you don't have to shave anymore!
I still shave my neck and it takes at least as long as shaving my face used to, because creating/maintaining a clean neckline takes longer than just shaving it off. I find it unattractive (and itchy) to have the beard grow down my neck as far as it wants to naturally.
Wouldn't be surprised if Dollar Shave Club brings some legal action against Dollar Beard Club.
They have copied them to such a degree with their name and their advertising it is creating confusion in the marketplace. And that's kind of a litmus test for trademark infringement from what I remember in my business law classes.
Wow, I assumed until your comment they were the same company. Kind of like how Enterprise has (or had) both rent-a-car and rent-a-van for moving, a slight tweak to the actual deliverable but same infrastructure/whatever, I assumed DSC owned DBC.
> Patent infringement is the act of making, using, selling, or offering to sell a patented invention, or importing into the United States a product covered by a claim of a patent without the permission of the patent owner. Further, you may be considered to infringe a patent if you import items into the United States that are made by a patented method, unless the item is materially changed by subsequent processes or becomes a trivial and nonessential component of another product. A person “infringes” a patent by practicing each element of a patent claim with respect to one of these acts. Further, actively encouraging others to infringe patents, or supplying or importing components of a patented invention, and related acts can also give rise to liability in certain cases.
If the P&G patent isn't valid where the blades are manufactured the manufacturer isn't in violation. It falls down to whoever is importing them. If they could sue the manufacturer then getting patents in one place would make them defacto valid everywhere and punish companies for the actions of their customers who they have no control over.
Does anyone know where the complaint is or at least the specific patents? I guess they are claiming infringement against a method to coat the blades somehow to improve shaving?
Why do I have a feeling this will be another one of those cases that expose just how corrupt and broken our patent system is.
I get the opposite impression. From the brief description in the article, this sounds like it might be a good patent. But I too would be interested in seeing just what the patent is.
The 4X, for instance is the same as the Dorco Pace 4 blade system, including compatibility between the cartridges/handles. I think Dollar Shave Club may provide unique handles, but the razor blade cartridges themselves are made by Dorco.