SHE SOLD WHAT?! 😱 How a Divorce Injected CHAOS into the Rare Breed v. Partisan Trigger case.

Added: 2026-05-06

[00:00:00]What's up everyone? Thanks for your patience. I'm moved into Florida. As you can see I have a new wall behind me with nothing on it yet, but you can tell it's me because of my guitar. I've got two things that we're going to go over today. One is the opening brief in the rare breed V Peak Tactical Federal Circuit appeal. And then the other one is really interesting. I put a post about it on my YouTube and just haven't had a chance to make a video about it yet.

[00:00:27]But it's where Rare Breed apparently obtained the half of the patent or rights to the patent from the partial owner I'm sorry, Michael Stakes ex-wife. Sorry, I'm trying to get back into this game and anyways, it's really strange. So let's just take a look at that real quick and then we'll dive into the other one.

[00:00:49]So this was filed a lifetime ago back on April 14th.

[00:00:54]This is in the Wyoming case and it's Rare Breed's memorandum in support of their motion to dismiss defendants first counterclaim. Remember Peak Tactical filed a counterclaim and said, "Uh-huh, actually infringe on our 067 patent."

[00:01:10]And so then we have this. They go through some of the arguments. I just look at the table of contents first cuz it gives me a kind of idea of what I'm about to look at. Count one fails because Partisan does not own 100% of the 067 patent and did not join all co-owners. Count one independently fails because Rare Breed's activities are expressly authorized by a patent co-owner. That is absolutely ridiculous.

[00:01:33]Count one must be dismissed under a rule 12 B7 because ABC is an indispensable party whose joinder is foreclosed by substantive patent law and dismissal must be with prejudice. Basically, prejudice without prejudice basically means if it's with prejudice, you can't bring the case again. If it's without prejudice, they could refile it.

[00:01:52]It's not a very long pleading and I'm not going to understand a lot of the stuff in here cuz I'm not an IP lawyer.

[00:01:56]But let's take a look. Rare Breed does not practice the 067 and does not need to a license to it. That issue is the subject of Rare Breed's forthcoming declaratory judgment counterclaim of non-infringement. A declaratory judgment is is simply it it is what it says it is. A declaration basically that they do not infringe on this patent and they're saying that they're going to file one.

[00:02:18]But Rare Breed has a license anyways.

[00:02:20]When it became clear that Partisan may frivolously assert the 067 against Rare Breed, ABC IP acquired a 50% ownership interest in the patent from the named inventors ex-wife, whose interest was confirmed in a divorce decree.

[00:02:33]ABC then of course exclusively licensed the patent to Rare Breed. Count one of Partisan's counterclaims must be dismissed because Partisan failed to join all co-owners of the 067 and Rare Breed's accused conduct is authorized.

[00:02:47]So they're saying basically, even if we were infringing on the 067, which we're not, but even if we were, we have half of the right to the patent. So there you go.

[00:02:57]067 patent issued during Michael and Emily Stakes marriage on June 12th, 2024, Arizona entered a decree of dissolution in their marriage, adjudicating all patents formed during the marriage as community property and awarding Emily Stakes a 50% interest. Oh man, divorces. On January 15th, 2026, more than the two months before Partisan filed its counterclaim, Emily assigned that interest to ABC.

[00:03:23]That same day ABC exercised its rights as co-owner by adding the 067 to Rare Breed's existing exclusive patent license agreement.

[00:03:33]The first independent reason for dismissal is that Partisan failed to join all co-owner co-owners of the 067.

[00:03:38]All co-owners must ordinarily consent to join as plaintiffs in an infringement suit.

[00:03:44]ABC has not joined, will not consent, and as Partisan's adversary in this very litigation, cannot be compelled to do so. So what they're saying basically now is ABC is partial owner in the 067 patent and you can't join them in this lawsuit because they're adverse. They're the plaintiff in this lawsuit. The second independent reason for dismissal is that Rare Breed's accused conduct is authorized. Any co-owner may license others to practice the patent without the consent of or accounting to the other owners. ABC exercised that right through the third addendum. Yikes, a lot. So gross.

[00:04:17]Okay.

[00:04:18]Let's see. Here they're through Michael and Emily's marriage. June 7th, 2009, they were married. On May 23rd, 2022, the marital community terminated.

[00:04:30]On June 12th, 2024, Arizona court entered the decree a divorce decree.

[00:04:35]The decree found that the patents marriage are community property and ordered patents awarded 50% to Emily Stakes and 50% to Michael Stakes.

[00:04:44]The decree further record Michael Stakes' own agreement to Emily's entitlement. The 067 patent was formed during the marriage and the decree therefore adjudicates Emily Stakes as a 50% owner of the 067 as a matter of Arizona community property law. On January 15th, 2026, this is this year, Emily executed an intellectual property quiet title and royalty assignment agreement irrevocably assigning her 50% ownership interest in the 067 patent to ABC.

[00:05:12]The assignment conveys all of assignor's rights, title, and interest in the patent including enforcement rights, causes of action for past, present, and future infringement, and all economic benefits.

[00:05:24]The assignment was a complete conveyance of all substantial rights, not a mere license.

[00:05:29]There are no retained rights, reversionary interest, or conditions. I wonder how much they paid for that. Um it certainly would have to be worth a good bit of money. Okay, we're going to skip the co-owner joinder rule, proper dismissal vehicle. Not interested in any of that. Okay, count one fails because Partisan does not own 100% of the 07 patent and did not join all the co-owners. An action for a patent infringement must join as plaintiff all co-owners.

[00:05:57]Okay, it's fair enough.

[00:05:58]Where a co-owner refuses to join, the suit cannot Partisan holds at most a 50% interest in the 067 patent. ABC holds the other 50%.

[00:06:08]I can't imagine a case like this. I mean this is like a law school exam question where the professor said some dumb idiotic thing.

[00:06:17]I you couldn't have thought of this. The facts establishing ABC's co-ownership are set forth in documents in public records. Decree records Michael Stakes' owner own agreement to Emily's entitlement. Emily Stakes irrevocably assigned her 50% interest in the 067 patent to ABC. The assignment agreement has been submitted for recordation with the US Patent and Trademark Office. The assignment was a complete conveyance of all substantial rights, not a mere license.

[00:06:42]Each link in the chain is established by a public record. The decree adjudicates Emily Stakes' ownership. The 067 patent's face confirms the relevant dates fall within the community period and the assignment agreement conveys that ownership to ABC. By the time Partisan filed its counterclaim on March 24th, 2026, the assignment had been in effect for over two months.

[00:07:03]There's absolutely no way that Partisan knew that this had happened.

[00:07:09]That this has happened. I bet they didn't know that Emily 100% guarantee you they did not know that ABC IP bought whatever that interest from Emily. ABC as co-owner refuses to join Partisan's counterclaim. That makes sense, right?

[00:07:25]Cuz they would be suing themselves. The notion that ABC should be compelled to join as co-plaintiff in a suit against itself is an absurdity absurdity that illustrates why count one is defective.

[00:07:34]Okay.

[00:07:36]That is insanity. I'll check the docket later on.

[00:07:39]We should have a response to this by now. Maybe not. Maybe they asked for an extension.

[00:07:46]But I'll check the docket and I'll bring that to you maybe tomorrow.

[00:07:50]Now this is their opening brief that they filed in the Federal Circuit. So normal normally when you have an appeal, you have an opening brief that whoever lost then is appealing it, they file first. Then you have the answering brief of whoever won below that's not appealing. And then you have a reply brief. In this case, ABC IP would be filing a reply brief. So they'll file two briefs and Partisan will file one brief. So this is ABC IP's brief. And it's 236 pages long. I'm sure a lot of the these are exhibits, but it's a very long opening brief. And luckily, PACER does charge me 10 cents per page, but they cap it at 30 pages unless it's a transcript. So I only had to pay $3 for this. And then they just have a recitation of all the various claims that they have, certificates of interest. It's a very long brief. Rare Breed is likely to succeed on the merits. I might just skip to this cuz I don't need to know I don't need to know all this stuff. Exemplary figures. Let's take a look and let's see what they say why they should win.

[00:08:52]Partisan did not dispute Rare Breed's standing.

[00:08:55]Fair enough. On the merits of infringement, Rare Breed presented the declaration testimony of Mr. an undisputed expert with over 25 years in the firearms field and over 20 years experience working with the ATF. And no one asked him any questions if my recollection is correct. Mr. declaration presents detailed claim chart showing how the accused disruptor meets each limitation of every asserted claim using CAD drawings.

[00:09:18]These facts combined with Partisan's own admissions about its deliberate copy copying amply show a likelihood of infringement and even beyond that willful infringement. Rare Breed showed no claim construction was needed. Mr. applied the plain meaning in his analysis opining that the asserted patents sufficiently describe the limitations of the claim such that their meanings are clear.

[00:09:40]Rare Breed argued consistent with opinion that the asserted claims do not need construction because the claim language is ordinarily given its ordinary and customary meaning.

[00:09:49]The asserted patents here do not show any clear lexicography or disavowal that would justify departing from the asserted claims plain meaning.

[00:09:56]And the asserted claims here use language in the ordinary rather than the technical sense, applying the widely accepted meaning of commonly understood words.

[00:10:06]Partisan responded with two non-infringement arguments rather than Rare Breed any material dispute about how the disruptor is designed or works.

[00:10:12]Both of Partisan's non-infringement arguments involved adding timing requirements to the claims. Okay, they're just basically going over what the arguments were in the district court and went over those transcripts.

[00:10:24]Partisan's invalidity case was a mishmash of disparate teachings from its identified references with no cohesive explanation of how those teachings relate to each other or the asserted claims.

[00:10:34]In contrast to Partisan's nitpicky timing focused non-infringement arguments, Partisan painted with a broad brushstroke of invalidity.

[00:10:42]Although the asserted claims are lengthy and detailed, yes, they are. Partisan reduced limitations to a single word and largely ignored how they interact with each other.

[00:10:52]Like to be fair to Partisan, it was enough for the district court not to grant a preliminary injunction, so they did something right. At the hearing, Partisan sought to simplify invalidity for the district court urging that the I'm I'm sorry, arguing that the asserted patents are the exact same as Mr. Stakes' 067 patent with two exceptions.

[00:11:08]One instead of the reset lever that Mr. Stakes had built in, they made the trigger bigger, so they eliminated the reset lever, so it is now a one-piece trigger.

[00:11:16]The second difference is they added the out of battery safety.

[00:11:20]But Mr. Stakes testified otherwise admitting that there are additional differences beyond just those two.

[00:11:25]And he says here at appendix 2244-2245, which I don't have a copy of cuz I don't want to pay for it.

[00:11:33]There are other differences.

[00:11:35]Partisan's simplistic framing of validity was also belied by Partisan's lead counsel's own rhetoric elsewhere about the surprising complexity of the trigger technology in question. Partisan failed to spell out, for example, in a claim chart how its identified references related to the asserted claims on a limitation-by-limitation basis. Partisan focused heavily on the fact that the prosecution histories of these patents contain 147 references ignoring that the examiner specifically indicated that he considered the 067 patent and Bonner. Partisan never attempted to reconcile its 067 patent-based invalidity theory with its own commercial behavior.

[00:12:11]If Partisan's own 067 patent Well, now it's not even really their own. It's uh co-owned by ABC IP.

[00:12:20]Already contained Rarebreed's technology, Partisan never needed to release a copy of Rarebreed's product.

[00:12:25]And then false advertising, that claim doesn't interest me at all. Okay, let's see what else. Rarebreed bear significant risk of irreparable harm.

[00:12:33]Rarebreed showed that Partisan's deliberate copying spray is likely to irreparably harm Rarebreed in forms that this court has held support preliminary injunctive relief.

[00:12:40]Lost sales and business opportunities, price erosion, and reputational harm.

[00:12:44]Preliminarily, uh Rarebreed's economic expert Dr. Worty characterized the relevant market as a niche market rather than a commodity market, meaning that a competing product can rapidly displace an incumbent supplier.

[00:12:56]And in doing so, permanently permanently alter the competitive landscape. First, Rarebreed showed it is likely to suffer a loss sales and business opportunities.

[00:13:04]In Partisan counsel's words, the sales have been strong. Partisan predicts it will sell 1.68 million disruptors in its first 3 years. That's just incredible number to me.

[00:13:15]Because FRT products are undisputedly durable, all of Partisan's infringing disruptor sales translate into lost sales opportunity for Rarebreed with little to no opportunity to regain customers. Maybe. Maybe.

[00:13:27]If I mean, it's it's not that they have little to no opportunity to customers if Partisan trigger because it's half price. Number one, they might not have ever been a customer of Rarebreed at double the price.

[00:13:39]And two, if they buy a Partisan disruptor and let's say they really like it at half price. And Partisan turns out to be a shady company, they the the disruptor doesn't work well or any of you know, whatever it is. I'm just examples here. They might say, "Oh, I shouldn't have done this. I'm going to buy an an FRT now from Rarebreed instead of this copy." Right? Right? So, it's not that they have little to no opportunity to regain customers. It's just we don't know what the future will hold.

[00:14:10]On price erosion, Rarebreed showed such harm is likely given Partisan's large sales projections combined with Partisan's steep 33% discount. Okay, it wasn't half, it was a third. But, you know, it's still pretty close. Rarebreed shows that Partisan harms Rarebreed's reputation in cutting Rarebreed's pricing and thereby suggesting to the public that its pricing is uncompetitive or unmerited. And publicly calling Rarebreed a bully for its patent enforcement efforts and shockingly comparing Rarebreed to someone who chains women and children up in his basement and woof until someone stops him. See this page of Ben stating there's a lot more going on here than any of you are aware of. We look further to providing further details in court. Oh, another mention of ar15.com. Probably a couple of there was a lot of threads on arfcom. Mr. DeMonico testified that Rarebreed's profit per trigger amounts to $425 or $350 depending on the model. Assuming the lower $350 figure and Partisan's 1.68 million unit predicted sales over 3 years, Rarebreed's lost profits would exceed $500 million.

[00:15:15]I'm telling you, I need to start making triggers. I would wouldn't be able to, but I need to try to start doing that.

[00:15:21]When asked how Partisan would pay for that, Mr. Woods said he had no idea. Or guessed that the money would come from Partisan's two $5 million insurance policies.

[00:15:30]More troubling, Mr. Woods testified that he did not know how much money or assets his company has.

[00:15:35]Regardless, because Rarebreed's per product profit exceed Partisan's steeply discounted price of $2.99, there's no part possibility that Partisan can make enough money to cover Rarebreed's lost profits.

[00:15:48]So, there is a lot of speculation in this. It's because you you speculate, right? We're just guessing that everyone that bought a trigger from Partisan at $2.99, I'm sorry, from P Tactical at $2.99 would be a customer at a 33% inflated price or a 33% more price from Rarebreed. And that is not always the case. So, it's not going to be an exact one-to-one copy, but it's it's going to be very very difficult to prove that. And I don't think the court's just going to say, "Yeah, if X bought it from Partisan, then they would have bought it from Rarebreed at 33% more of the price." I mean, you're saying what they're saying here is that this is an exact copy of Rarebreed's product. That Rarebreed's product is better or that the disruptor is worse. It's a one-to-one copy. That's what is being claimed as far as I can tell. Partisan's lack of financial history as a new company and its modus operandi of secrecy and evasiveness also illustrate the unlikelihood of Rarebreed's recovery absent preliminary injunctive relief. Yeah, I mean, this is this is the thing that they have to argue on a preliminary injunction. All my other videos, usually when you have preliminary injunctions, if you can be satisfied with a monetary damage judgment, then you're not going to get preliminary relief. Almost all the time.

[00:17:04]That's what happens. But here, if they're unable to collect a judgment, then the court will take that into account say, "Yeah, it's irreparable because you can get a money judgment, you just can't collect." Says the public favors preliminary relief. Let me see what they say here cuz I think that they're going to reference Hoffman.

[00:17:21]DOJ's statements confirm that the public interest favors preliminary injunctive relief here.

[00:17:26]But remember, DOJ didn't file a statement of interest in this case. An amicus, they didn't file anything. I anticipate that we will see DOJ file something on appeal.

[00:17:37]DOJ settled litigation with Rarebreed on condition that Rarebreed enforce its patents in furtherance of the government's public safety goals.

[00:17:45]And since then, DOJ has submitted a statement of interest in favor of Rarebreed in a separate litigation.

[00:17:50]That's in the Hoffman case. So, they did just like I thought, they said that.

[00:17:53]Partisan's response did not meaningfully grapple with any of these considerations, but merely reiterated that it would incur harm from choosing to enter into an infringing business and complained generically that patents can permit their owners to charge higher prices. All right, this is the same thing that happened in the district court now and we're not going to go over that. Summary of the argument. The district court abused its discretion.

[00:18:17]That's what you're up on on appeal on a preliminary injunction. And the thing about discretion is it's it's really really difficult. So, they're going to have to to prove that the judge applied the wrong or did something else. I mean, it's applying the wrong law is not necessarily an abuse of discretion, but that would satisfy abuse of For each applicable factor, the district court misapplied the law, made clearly erroneous factual findings, or both because the record only supports the conclusion that each factor weighs in favor of in preliminary enjoining Partisan's infringing contact conduct, the court should reverse. They're just summarizing their arguments here and it should be over. Oh, no, it's it's like it's just beginning. Goodness gracious. What a long brief.

[00:19:01]I can't imagine how much just can't really be 236 pages. Excuse me. Oh, that's where they're going over the district court's uh what they did. Yeah, that's fine. Let me take a look at page 64. The district court focused the bulk of its analysis on distinguishing this case from Hoffman, in which the district court granted a PI in that case.

[00:19:22]After a 3-day hearing in the DOJ submitted a statement of interest. DOJ's position plainly flows from the fact that it settled litigation with Rarebreed thus opening the FRT market on condition that Rarebreed must enforce its patent and promote FRT's safe use. So, my thing, and I said this before, is ATF and DOJ, whatever, can regulate machine guns. They are flatly not able to regulate just regular triggers that are not machine guns. So, if in ATF and DOJ's mind that an FRT is not a machine gun, and we know that's true because that's what they said, then you can't condition you can't condition opening the FRT market on anything because like they can't regulate it. Think about that. I mean, it's I understand what position that is, but I think it's just not a good argument. District court's oversight of the critical facts on public interest and its application of the standard warrant reversal of its finding.

[00:20:18]Yeah, that's what that's what I would expect them to argue. All right. So, the rest of these the appendix that they just attached and it's all of the rulings and the patents and whatever else. What just a lot of stuff.

[00:20:31]Um a lot of stuff. But, yeah, in the next few days I'll look at look at a response from in the Wyoming case to see if they've responded to Emily selling Michael Stakes' invention, the 067 patent. I thought that was going to be like um you know, as as much as I can't think it would be a shoe in for Peak Tactical if they owned the patent and then they counter claim against Rare Breed, but this buying or you know, whatever half of the patent the patent rights throws all of that into just absolute chaos. Can you imagine being the four Peak Tactical right now and not having known that you know, Michael Stakes didn't own all the patent. Or even Peak Tactical, Michael Stakes didn't they didn't he had had lost half of the rights to the patent to his wife in a divorce decree back in 2024. That's That's terrible. So, I mean, terrible for them. I mean, divorces happen and things get separated, segregated, I don't want to call it time, but case like this, it's a really big case with millions and millions and millions of like hundreds of millions of dollars on the line. It's something that you would have wanted to know on the onset so you can decide if this is a battle that you want to pick. Anyways, like I said, thanks for your patience. Um I've been out I think like for 2 weeks and it's I feel like a weight to when I'm not doing this on my and knowing that I'm letting people down because they want to listen to these uh Rare Breed drama. And anyways, thanks for sticking around. I hope to see you soon. Have a great day and I'm loving Florida. Y'all take care.