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Solo Brands’ popular Solo Stove smokeless fire pit (click link for our review) has been a big hit with consumers. That success helped drive a profitable quarter and 2022 guidance for Solo Brands, unlike Weber and Traeger. Despite other innovative fire pits in the market, Solo Stove could be even more successful though, Solo Brands alleges, if it didn’t have to deal with knock-off fire pits from Duraflame.
A suit filed in the Northern District of Texas by Solo Brands at the beginning of February has some very strong allegations against Duraflame and a company that Duraflame used to manufacture fire pits, SAS Group, Inc. From the suit, Solo Brands makes the following allegations below. The images referenced the filing were of low quality, but we created a similar image featured in this story.
After Solo Stove declined to manufacture “private label” fire pits for Duraflame, Duraflame struck a deal with SAS Group. SAS Group then purchased Solo Stove fire pits and used them to manufacture knock-off fire pits for Duraflame. Defendants are actively flooding the United States market, including this District. And as shown in the images below taken from internet advertisements, Defendants’ knock-off fire pits look exactly like Solo Stove’s
From our completely non-legal, unqualified opinion, we can’t say we disagree with Solo Brands’ opinion. The Duraflame fire pits look like Solo Stoves, but with square holes, rather than circles. Before knowledge of the suit, we came across the Duraflame fire pits in a Target store and noted how similar they were.
That product interaction in Target is also where this story continues. Beyond their suit against Duraflame and SAS Group, Solo Brands has now filed a complaint against Target Corporation. In it, they allege the following.
- Target advertises, promotes, offers for sale, sells, and/or distributes a Duraflame-brand 19.5” Smokeless Wood Burning Firepit (the “Duraflame Fire Pit”)
- The Duraflame Fire Pit is a virtually identical copy of the design disclosed in the Solo Brands’ patent
- The Duraflame Fire Pit directly competes with Solo Stove’s Bonfire, Ranger, and Yukon fire pits in the market for portable fire pits
- Solo Stove has lost significant sales because of having to compete with the Duraflame Fire Pit
- Solo Stove demanded that Target cease and desist infringing Solo Stove’s rights. Specifically, on January 27, 2022, Solo Stove wrote to Target, informing it of its infringement of the D’163 Patent. Target received that letter. Target, however, continued to offer the Duraflame Fire Pit for sale.
We’ll see how this all shakes out, but in addition to Target, a quick search online shows that the Durflame Fire Pit is now available at additional retailers such as Home Depot and Walmart.