Why Aren't P-Lips Proprietary?

[mikethompson]

Forgive my ignorance here, but if the P-Lip is a Peterson 'thing', why do some other manufacturers make them as well? I have a Vauen with a P-Lip for instance.

 

[unkleyoda]

I have never seen another maker with a P-lip. Also, the patent would have run out by now, but they could trademark it.
Also, are you sure that's the factory stem?

 

[scloyd]

I can't answer your question but Vauen does produce pipes with P-lips.

Vauen 7015 P-lip

 

[ssjones]

Other makers that knocked off the P-lip include:

Wellington, Vauen, Grabow, Dr. Plumb and Savinelli
Here's an interesting article on PipePhil:

http://pipephil.eu/logos/en/infos/p-lip-en.html

 

[mikethompson]

Interesting read Al, thanks for the link.

 

[workman]

I have a Vauen with a p-lip the size of a basketball. Hate that pipe!

 

[ashdigger]

Not to mention that BBB made a P-Lip imitation known as the Glokar.

 

[mso489]

mike's right. I was gifted with a Thompson Cigar house pipe, an estate stamped "West Germany," with a Vulcanite P-lip bit. This pipe is from maybe the sixties. So perhaps the patent was never secured or ran out many decades ago. It might have also been blurred by variances in international patent law. The point is, various pipe makers sold them, and I haven't seen any patent number stamps on any of them. It may be that Peterson borrowed the idea. This stem/bit oxidized after every smoke, and I would polish it up, and it would oxidize (deeply, with gritty texture) again. So I shipped off the pipe and had a fine tortoise shell acrylic stem made. I still have the P-lip stem as a curiosity. Really like the new fishtail version.

 

[eaglewriter1]

There are a lot of pipes that copy the Peterson System and the P-Lip. There is also such a thing appearently as a "false" P-lip where the angle of the drafthole is different from the actual peterson patent. I happen to have a Pipe (drycell Made in France) that is basicly a carbon copy of the Peterson System 309.

 

[crashthegrey]

Patents only afford you a limited monopoly, limited by time. This would be well expired by now.

 

[kenbarnes]

I know that Vauen (pipe-makers since 1848) have been making the 'P' lip for many years. They also patented the white spot in Europe before Alfred Dunhill in the 1920s.This controversy still went on in the late 1970s and they made pipes with another coloured dot for the UK market. I think that I have seen Vauen 'P' lip mouthpieces on pipes from the 1920s too (or earlier?). Someone correct me if need be.

 

[sablebrush52]

My Oppenheimer catalog for 1938 shows plenty of P-lip pipes. Other makers were were using this bit a long time ago. What if the P-Lip turns out not to be a Peterson thing. What if Peterson was copying something that they had seen.

 

[mso489]

Keep in mind that in earlier times the pipe industry was larger and played at higher stakes, so there were all kinds of innovations on pipes, useful and not, to try to capture more of the market. That's how we got all the stingers, carburetors, airway configurations, and other odd variations. Many of these permutations hang on today, sometimes as brand specific features, sometimes not. One of the attractive features of artisan pipes and certain series of factory pipes is that they do not have any of these features, and the simplicity is strongly appealing to many of us.

 

[ssjones]

What if the P-Lip turns out not to be a Peterson thing. What if Peterson was copying something that they had seen.

Blasphemy! I hope Mark Irwin never reads this!

 

[mikethompson]

What if the P-Lip turns out not to be a Peterson thing. What if Peterson was copying something that they had seen

8O

 

[ssjones]

According to James Lilly, the P-lip and Patent were introduced in 1898 and the patent expired around 1922.

 

[Chasing Embers]

Savinelli's Dry System has been using them since 1981.

 

[mso489]

ssjones and embers, thank you for the scholarship. Now P-lip belongs to the ages.

 

[husky]

I was searching for information on a P-lip problem and the picture in the second last post shows it.

I have a Peterson 05 p-lip with a bent stem and every time i run a pipe cleaner through it the wire end scrapes

against the top side of the channel. I hate the thought of how it must look. I can pre bend the cleaner but then I can't get past the angled hole.

Anyone have a solution to this?

 

[sasquatch]

Take the stem out. That's literally WHY they are shaped the way they are. Take it out any time you like, and ram it back in there, hot, cold, wet dry, indestructable pipes.