Also, links to those stupid inflatable bags on alibaba were everywhere once the kickstarter went viral. The article makes it sound like the kid magically found it.
I'm not sure how you define a cheap knockoff, but in this case it seems like he's using the same supply chain that the kickstarter campaigners did
> before the original designers
I fear that you reveal you didn't read the article. The first product he ordered and sold was five years old, paraphrasing the article "the only thing new was the buzz from the indiegogo campaign"
> launch a patent lawsuit
Woah now there skipper. You're assuming that the people creating the campaigns are the original inventors, that their inventions are patent eligible, that they have filed a patent, and that they can afford to protect them.
As their kickstarter campaign went viral, several clones started being offered on aliexpress and the like. They are flat out clones, look just like the original and (AFAIK) there's not some common ancestor here that they're both copying, it's a case of Antsy labs had the original design and that got cloned.
Antsy labs have been aware of the knockoffs and have actively been trying to prevent them (to little effect from what I've seen) and as it mentions in the article there is a patent pending on Fidget cube.
The problem for the Kickstarter creators is that they're basically slower to market than the clones, and in many cases the consumer doesn't really recognise the difference (if you look at twitter etc you can see quite a few people angry about "bad quality" fidget cubes they've received which turn out to be knockoffs)
This raises an important question about economics, free markets, and what it is for a product to be a 'clone.' Is it only necessary to have an idea for a product and market that idea or must one also bring it to market quickly?
Apple wasn't successful because of the ideas but because of the implementation behind them, is it wrong if another market participant moves faster? What does this say about the crowdsourcing model for inexperienced manufacturers/designers?