Manufacturers - there are only a couple manufactures of clay and patents protect the technology, with some subtle difference in consistency and firmness, a recent court hearing found components of the ?elastic clay? to be a patent infringement and the judge ordered sale of the product to be halted. (In the United States, Auto Wax Company Inc. (now owned by Illinois Tool Works Inc.) owns the US patent rights (No. 5,727,993) and reads thus;
?A method of polishing a protrusion or stain from a surface comprising; applying a plastic flexible tool to the surface, the plastic flexible tool comprising a plastic flexible material having mixed therewith an abrasive comprising grains from about 3 to 50 m in diameter and; applying a force to the plastic flexible tool such that a polishing force per area is applied by the plastic flexible tool to a protrusion or stain on the surface, and such that the amount of force per area applied to the surface is less than the amount of force per area applied to the protrusion or stain.?
Auto Wax owns six patents relating to clay products and provides private label clay to many of the detail industry?s leading companies. As a result, all of the Polybutene (Polyisobutylene) or plastic clay being manufactured now comes from the same factory in Japan, which as the original patent holder and has a monopoly on the market. Meguiar's, Mother's, Sonus, Zaino, et al get their clay either from Japan (Source Chem. Inc. one of Japan's biggest clay manufacturers) or from the US licensed manufacturer, Clay Magic, a brand name used by Auto Magic, Auto Wax Co (the U.S. patent holder)
The outcome of this is that 99% of detailing clay sold in the USA is produced under licence by Auto Magic, so apart from colour and packaging it the same thing - so much for free market competition and anti-monopoly legislation?