But more expensive pens or ones made elsewhere are not. There are only so many basic geometric shapes, no one has a patent on the hexagon. Every single company makes cigar shaped pens but they aren't being called knockoffs or clones. And even the ones that are even similar looking but not identical are still called clones. There are a few that even I would agree actually are clones such as the cap-less pens that use the same patented mechanisms but the term is getting way over used.