Gillette, the razor powerhouse owned by P&G, filed a lawsuit on Thursday against online razor seller Dollar Shave Club. 
 
 The suit, filed in federal court in Delaware, says Dollar Shave Club products infringe on a 2004 Gillette patent related to a razor blade with a “chromium-containing overcoat layer.” Gillette wants monetary damages and a court order to stop Dollar Shave Club from selling infringing razors. It’s not clear why the suit does not name Dorco, the South Korean maker of Dollar Shave Club’s razors and an equity stakeholder in the startup. (Update: P&G spokesman Damon Jones said, “[Dollar Shave Club is] actually selling the product and bringing it to market; that’s why they are named in the suit.”) 
 
 Jones said the company regularly does “market surveillance” — that is, testing of competitor products — and discovered in its most recent round of testing of Dollar Shave Club blades what it believed to be patent-infringing razors. The testing followed press reports of Dollar Shave Club “investing new money in product development,” Jones said. 
 
 A Dollar Shave Club spokeswoman declined to comment on the lawsuit. 
 
 Dollar Shave Club has raised nearly $150 million in equity investments and was recently valued by backers at around $600 million. The company launched in 2012 with a hit promotional video starring CEO Michael Dubin, and has used a mix of irreverent online videos, TV commercials and social media campaigns since then to attract a large customer base. Dubin said earlier this year that it had more than two million subscribers who receive razor blade shipments every month or every other month. The CEO also said the company was projecting at least $140 million in 2015 revenue. 
 
 Gillette introduced Gillette Shave Club last year and hired celebrities such as Giants quarterback Eli Manning to promote it in June ahead of Father’s Day. 
 
 Correction: The story has been updated to clarify that the patent in question is for a razor blade including an overcoat layer, and not for the overcoat layer itself. 

 The razor wars are headed to court. 
 
 Gillette filed a patent lawsuit Thursday against Dollar Shave Club Inc., an online subscription service that in just three years has chipped away at Gillette’s dominance to grab 8% of the $3 billion U.S. market for razors and blades. 
 
 The civil suit, filed in Delaware by the Procter & Gamble Co. PG 0.86% unit, asks the U.S. District Court to stop its rival from selling razors that infringe one of Gillette’s hundreds of patents. 
 
 In a lawsuit against Dollar Shave Club, Gillette is seeking an injunction to prevent the sale of products infringing patented technology. Photo: AP 
 
 The seven-page lawsuit says Dollar Shave Club’s blades infringe on a patent, issued in 2004, that involves two coatings used to strengthen the edge of a blade and protect it from wear. Gillette uses the coatings on its Mach 3, Venus and Fusion products, among others. 
 
 P&G spokesman Damon Jones said the company routinely tests competitor’s products and had “reason to believe” that Dollar Shave Club was making changes to its products. It evaluated the blades, and discovered the alleged infringement, Mr. Jones said. A spokeswoman for Dollar Shave Club declined to comment. 
 
 The suit comes after 120-year-old Gillette was slow to respond to the rise of online rivals. Gillette, which controls more than 60% of the U.S. retail market, only has 20% of the online shaving market. It launched its own subscription service last year called Gillette Shave Club. 
 
 P&G won’t disclose how many subscribers its shave club has, but since its June relaunch, Gillette’s e-commerce share of blade and razors has increased four percentage points, the company said last month. 
 
 P&G occasionally has turned to the courts to battle competitors. In 2014, it sued a small toothpaste manufacturer, Hello Products LLC, for saying their toothpaste was 99% natural on its package. P&G also has defended its Crest Whitestrips teeth-whitening product from a private-label manufacturer. 
 
 “We take every violation of our intellectual property seriously, and when necessary, we take legal action to defend our business as we have in the past and will continue to do in the future,” P&G spokesman Mr. Jones said. 
 
 Dollar Shave Club burst onto the scene in 2012 with a provocative video starring company founder Michael Dubin, where he deadpanned, “Our blades are f— great.” 
 
 The company offered to send razor cartridges directly to customers for as little as $1 a month, a model that appealed to the changing shopping habits of consumers fed up with the rising cost of a clean shave. 
 
 The company now claims to have 10 million customers who pay between $1 and $9 for its blades at least every other month. 
 
 In June, Mr. Dubin said the company was on track this year to generate $140 million in sales, which includes other personal care products such as shaving cream and flushable wipes. 
 
 Dollar Shave Club has attracted more than $90 million in venture funding, according to Dow Jones VentureSource. Its latest round valued the company at $630 million. P&G has a market value of $220 billion. 
 
 Gillette’s subscription service takes a different approach to Dollar Shave’s, which tries to get customers into the habit of changing their blades weekly. P&G says that men can spend about $5 a month for its priciest razorblades. 
 
 The claim relies on the durability of Gillette blades and the fact that they can last a month for men who shave an average of three to four times a week. 
 
 In its suit, Gillette says Dollar Shave Club’s razors violate its patent using of the chemical element chromium to adhere to an outer layer of a compound called polytetrafluoroethylene on its blades. 
 
 Dollar Shave Club buys its blades from Dorco, the U.S. arm of a South Korean razor manufacturer, which also makes private-label razors for retailers such as Walgreens and Dollar General Corp. 
 
 Gillette’s suit doesn’t mention the supplier. Dorco representatives weren’t immediately available for comment. 
 
 While razor makers have for years fought about how many blades they can fit onto a cartridge, Gillette’s newest cartridge, the Fusion ProShield, will instead feature a new lubricating strip. 
 
 Write to Anne Steele at Anne.Steele@wsj.com 

 This is a set of web collections curated by Mark Graham using the Archive-IT service of the Internet Archive. They include web captures of the ISKME.org website as well as captures from sites hosted by IGC.org.These web captures are available to the general public.For more information about this collection please feel free to contact Mark via Send Mail 

 An Open Letter From The Thousands Of Men And Women At Gillette 
 
 Trust in our word is as important as trust in our product - they go together. There has been a lot of talk about Gillette recently – about our claims, our technology, our prices, our marketing – essentially about us as people who work here, and about what we stand for. So we want to talk to you directly about a few things we really care about. 
 
 
 
 First, Shaving is our passion – and we don’t mean the act of shaving every morning. We mean shaving as a science. For us, every detail counts. We do over 60 precise quality checks from raw material to final cartridge and it must pass every single time, or it will never leave our plants. We know of no other razor manufacturer globally who holds to this standard. We are working hard every day so that our best razors are better than any other product out there, because we want to give you the best shave possible and we want to be better than your expectation, every time. Why does this matter? Because we want you to start every day confident that you are using the best razor for the job, without worrying about the right shaving technique or getting irritations from low quality razors that are just repackaged with a fancy name and website. 
 
 Secondly, being the best isn’t always enough, and you told us that our blades can be too expensive. We heard you. Starting April 1 you can find the majority of Gillette blade refills in the United States at lower prices in most retailers, online and offline. This is a real price reduction, not just a temporary promotion. For the exact same products you are used to – no compromise on quality, period. Actual retail prices are at the sole discretion of retailer as is industry standard, and you can find an overview of our products and prices 
 
 Lastly, we’re excited that over 200,000 of you have come back to Gillette in just the last few weeks. Many of you have tried different products, and we’re proud that you came back to the Gillette quality you know you can trust. It is also a fact that between November 2013-October 2015 more than half of people who tried one of our competitors didn’t make another purchase – a fact that held true even before we started our Welcome Back offer last year. We know that some competitors may not like it, but in the end it’s the quality of the shave that should matter most. 
 
 
 
 
 
 We work hard. We’ve been around for more than 115 years, built on the values of quality, innovation and trust, and that’s something we don’t plan to change. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Thank you for trusting us with your faces, every day,- The Faces Behind the Blades, the Men and Women of Gillette – 

 The invention relates to improvements to razors and razor blades. 
 
 A razor blade is typically formed of a suitable substrate material such as stainless steel, and a cutting edge is formed with a wedge-shaped configuration with an ultimate tip having a radius less than about 1000 angstroms, e.g., about 200-300 angstroms. Hard coatings such as diamond, amorphous diamond, diamond-like carbon-(DLC) material, nitrides, carbides, oxides or ceramics are often used to improve strength, corrosion resistance and shaving ability, maintaining needed strength while permitting thinner edges with lower cutting forces to be used. Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) outer layer can be used to provide friction reduction. Interlayers of niobium or chromium containing materials can aid in improving the binding between the substrate, typically stainless steel, and hard carbon coatings, such as DLC. Examples of razor blade cutting edge structures and processes of manufacture are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,295,305; 5,232,568; 4,933,058; 5,032,243; 5,497,550; 5,940,975; 5,669,144; EP 0591339; and PCT 92/03330, which are hereby incorporated by reference. 
 
 In use, the ultimate tip of the edges having hard coatings and polytetrafluoroethylene outer layers can become more rounded after repeated shaves such that there is an increase in the tip radius and a generally perceived decrease in shaving performance. 
 
 SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
 
 In one aspect, the invention features, in general, a razor blade including a substrate with a cutting edge defined by a sharpened tip and adjacent facets, a layer of hard coating on the cutting edge, an overcoat layer of a chromium containing material on the layer of hard coating, and an outer layer of polytetrafluoroethylene coating on the overcoat layer. 
 
 In another aspect the invention features, in general, a shaving razor including a handle and a razor head with a blade having a substrate with a cutting edge defined by a sharpened tip and adjacent facets, a layer of hard coating on the cutting edge, an overcoat layer of a chromium containing material on the layer of hard coating, and an outer layer of polytetrafluoroethylene coating on the overcoat layer. 
 
 Particular embodiments of the invention may include one or more of the following features. In particular embodiments, the hard coating material can be made of carbon containing materials (e.g., diamond, amorphous diamond or DLC), nitrides, carbides, oxides or other ceramics. The hard coating layer can have a thickness less than 2,000 angstroms. The overcoat layer can be made of chromium or a chromium containing alloy compatible with polytetrafluoroethylene such as a chromium platinum alloy. The overcoat layer can be between 100 and 500 angstroms thick. The blade can include an interlayer between the substrate and the layer of hard coating. The interlayer can include niobium or a chromium containing material. The polytetrafluoroethylene can be Krytox LW1200 available from DuPont. The PTFE outer layer can be between 100 and 5000 angstroms thick. 
 
 In another aspect, the invention features, in general, making a razor blade by providing a substrate with a cutting edge defined by a sharpened tip and adjacent facets, adding a layer of hard coating on the cutting edge, adding an overcoat layer of a chromium containing material on the layer of hard coating, and adding an outer layer of polytetrafluoroethylene coating over the overcoat layer. 
 
 Particular embodiments of the invention may include one or more of the following features. In particular embodiments the layers can be added by physical vapor deposition (i.e., sputtering) or by chemical vapor deposition. The chromium containing layer, preferably chromium, can be sputter deposited under conditions that result in a compressively stressed coating. The sputter deposition of chromium containing materials can include applying a DC bias to the target that is more negative than −50 volts, preferably more negative than −200 volts. Alternatively an appropriate RF bias scheme can be used to achieve an equivalent chromium layer. 
 
 Embodiments of the invention may include one or more of the following advantages. The use of a chromium containing overcoat layer provides improved adhesion of the polytetrafluorethylene outer layer to the hard coating layer. The razor blade has improved edge strength provided by hard coating and has reduced tip rounding with repeated shaves. Reduced tip rounding minimizes the increase in cutting force thereby maintaining excellent shaving performance. The razor blade has excellent shaving characteristics from the first shave onwards. 
 
 Other features and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the following description of a particular embodiment and from the claims. 
 
 DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
 
 FIG. 1 is a vertical sectional view of a cutting edge portion of a razor blade. 
 
 FIG. 2 is a perspective view of a shaving razor including the FIG. 1 razor blade. 
 
 DESCRIPTION OF A PARTICULAR EMBODIMENT 
 
 Referring to FIG. 1, there is shown razor blade 10 including substrate 12, interlayer 14, hard coating layer 16, overcoat layer 18, and outer layer 20. The substrate 12 is typically made of stainless steel (though other substrates can be employed) and has an ultimate edge sharpened to a tip radius of less than 1,000 angstroms, preferably 200 to 300 angstroms, and has a profile with side facets 22 at an included angle of between 15 and 30 degrees, preferably about 19 degrees, measured at 40 microns from the tip. 
 
 Interlayer 14 is used to facilitate bonding of the hard coating layer to the substrate. Examples of suitable interlayer material are niobium and chromium containing material. A particular interlayer is made of niobium greater than 100 angstroms and preferably less than 500 angstroms thick. PCT 92/03330 describes use of a niobium interlayer. 
 
 Hard coating layer 16 provides improved strength, corrosion resistance and shaving ability and can be made from carbon containing materials (e.g., diamond, amorphous diamond or DLC), nitrides (e.g., boron nitride, niobium nitride or titanium nitride), carbides (e.g., silicon carbide), oxides (e.g., alumina, zirconia) or other ceramic materials. The carbon containing materials can be doped with other elements, such as tungsten, titanium or chromium by including these additives, for example in the target during application by sputtering. The materials can also incorporate hydrogen, e.g., hydrogenated DLC. Preferably coating layer 16 is made of diamond, amorphous diamond or DLC. A particular embodiment includes DLC less than 2,000 angstroms, preferably less than 1,000 angstroms. DLC layers and methods of deposition are described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,232,568. As described in the “Handbook of Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD) Processing,” DLC is an amorphous carbon material that exhibits many of the desirable properties of diamond but does not have the crystalline structure of diamond. 
 
 Overcoat layer 18 is used to reduce the tip rounding of the hard coated edge and to facilitate bonding of the outer layer to the hard coating while still maintaining the benefits of both. Overcoat layer 18 is preferably made of chromium containing material, e.g., chromium or chromium alloys that are compatible with polytetrafluoroethylene, e.g., CrPt. A particular overcoat layer is chromium about 100-200 angstroms thick. Blade 10 has a cutting edge that has less rounding with repeated shaves than it would have without the overcoat layer. 
 
 Outer layer 20 is used to provide reduced friction and includes polytetrafluoroethylene and is sometimes referred to as a telomer. A particular polytetrafluoroethylene material is Krytox LW 1200 available from DuPont. This material is a nonflammable and stable dry lubricant that consists of small particles that yield stable dispersions. It is furnished as an aqueous dispersion of 20% solids by weight and can be applied by dipping, spraying, or brushing, and can thereafter be air dried or melt coated. The layer is preferably less than 5,000 angstroms and could typically be 1,500 angstroms to 4,000 angstroms, and can be as thin as 100 angstroms, provided that a continuous coating is maintained. Provided that a continuous coating is achieved, reduced telomer coating thickness can provide improved first shave results. U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,263,256 and 5,985,459, which are hereby incorporated by reference, describe techniques which can be used to reduce the thickness of an applied telomer layer. 
 
 Razor blade 10 is made generally according to the processes described in the above referenced patents. A particular embodiment includes a niobium interlayer 14, DLC hard coating layer 16, chromium overcoat layer 18, and Krytox LW1200 polytetrafluoroethylene outer coat layer 20. Chromium overcoat layer 18 is deposited to a minimum of 100 angstroms and a maximum of 500 angstroms. It is deposited by sputtering using a DC bias (more negative than −50 volts and preferably more negative than −200 volts) and pressure of about 2 millitorr argon. The increased negative bias is believed to promote a compressive stress (as opposed to a tensile stress), in the chromium overcoat layer which is believed to promote improved resistance to tip rounding while maintaining good shaving performance. Blade 10 preferably has a tip radius of about 200-400 angstroms, measured by SEM after application of overcoat layer 18 and before adding outer layer 20. 
 
 Referring to FIG. 2, blade 10 can be used in shaving razor 110, which includes handle 112 and replaceable shaving cartridge 114. Cartridge 14 includes housing 116, which carries three blades 10, guard 120 and cap 122. Blades 10 are movably mounted, as described, e.g., in U.S. Pat. No. 5,918,369, which is incorporated by reference. Cartridge 114 also includes an interconnect member on which housing 116 is pivotally mounted at two arms 128. The interconnect member includes a base 127 which is replaceably connected to handle 112. Alternatively, blade 10 can be used in other razors having one, two or more than three blades, double-sided blades, and razors that do not have movable blades or pivoting heads where the cartridge is either replaceable or permanently attached to a razor handle. 
 
 In use, razor blade 10 has excellent shaving characteristics from the first shave onwards. Blade 10 has improved edge strength provided by hard coating and has reduced tip rounding with repeated shaves provided by the overlayer coating while maintaining excellent shave characteristics. 
 
 Other embodiments of the invention are within the scope of the appended claims. 

 WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — The Gillette Company is suing online razor supplier Dollar Shave Club in federal court for patent infringement. 
 
 The lawsuit filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Delaware claims that Dollar Shave Club is selling products that infringe on patented technology, including a blade coating used on Gillette products such as the Mach3, Venus and Fusion razors. 
 
 Boston-based Gillette, a subsidiary of Procter and Gamble, says it owns all rights, title and interest in the patent. 
 
 A spokeswoman for Dollar Shave Club, based in Venice, California, says the company is looking into the lawsuit but has no comment at this time. 
 
 Gillette says the offending products being sold by Dollar Shave Club are marketed under the names The Humble Twin, The 4X, and The Executive. 

 Dollar Shave Club claims it passed Schick to become the No. 2 razor cartridge brand by volume in July, a little more than three years after the online shaving brand hit the market. 
 
 While that isn't independently confirmed, the company's claim is largely consistent with available third-party data. If true, it still leaves the upstart well behind Procter & Gamble Co.'s market-leader Gillette, and behind Schick in dollar sales. 
 
 Dollar Shave Club has doubled its subscriber count to 2.2 million in less than 10 months since launching a major national TV ad push in November, according to founder and CEO Michael Dubin. Flush with venture capital, the brand founded on a viral video has been the biggest-spending razor brand on TV since November, even edging out Gillette by $64.5 million to $43.4 million, according to iSpot.tv. 
 
 Though Dollar Shave Club isn't yet profitable, the $75 million venture-capital round it closed in June will help fund more TV ads, nine months after a $50 million round that helped fund its initial TV push. 
 
 "I can't talk about budgeting, but TV has been a winner for us and a space we're going to stay in," Mr. Dubin said. A new round of ads breaking this month aim to drive home the value of using fresh blades. 
 
 "It feels great to shave with a fresh blade," Mr. Dubin said. "And we feel there are millions more guys out there that have that perception and would enjoy that experience. This campaign is about finding those guys." 
 
 Cartridges are the biggest and, at least for the established players, most profitable segment of shaving, and indeed one of the highest-margin categories in packaged goods. Dollar Shave Club said it had a 16% volume share of cartridges for July, based on its own sales data, compared to scanner data from Nielsen indicating a 15% volume share for Schick on an annual basis (if online sales are added in). Nielsen data from Deutsche Bank, however, show Schick's cartridge volume share for the four weeks ended Aug. 8 about a point ahead of its annual share – which would leave the two brands roughly tied. 
 
 Chris Gough, VP-investor relations of Edgewell, Schick's owner, declined to comment on Mr. Dubin's share claim, saying Dollar Shave Club is a private company without publicly audited financials and operating in an online marketplace without widely available third-party sales data. Even Nielsen doesn't cover the entire shaving market, he said. 
 
 But third-party data from Slice Intelligence, which mines electronic receipts of online purchases from a panel of 2 million, suggests that if it hasn't already happened, it may only be a short time before DSC becomes the No. 2 U.S. razor cartridge brand, even by dollars. 
 
 Slice data jibes with Dollar Shave Club's growth tally, showing the club had online sales of $16.3 million in July. That's more than double the $7.7 million recorded in October, before its in-house-created TV campaign started, and nearly triple the club's sales rate a year ago. 
 
 By contrast, Schick's offline unit sales were down 6.8% from a year ago for the four weeks ended Aug. 8, according to Nielsen, and its dollar sales fell 5.5%, both numbers somewhat better than results for the full year. 
 
 Dollar Shave Club, which focuses on cheaper blades that men change weekly, still trails Schick in cartridge dollar share by a 9% to 16% margin by its own Nielsen-aided estimate. And Schick remains ahead on volume and dollars counting broader razor products, including disposables and razor handles. 
 
 Even so, it's a remarkable run for a three-year-old razor upstart nipping at an 89-year-old incumbent. If Dollar Shave Club maintained its current monthly sales level, it would have nearly $200 million in sales the next 12 months, per Slice data. Even if its current growth pace of the past year were cut in half, Dollar Shave Club would pass Schick in cartridge dollar sales within a year. And were the club to somehow triple its sales again – certainly a stretch – it could pass Schick in total dollar sales. 
 
 Schick has had $222 million in cartridge sales the past year, per Nielsen, and as much as $235 million adding in Slice's estimate of its online sales. Schick also has another $115 million in sales of razor handles and $239 million in sales of disposables, the latter a segment where Dollar Shave Club doesn't compete. 
 
 The offline razor business is much bigger, but shrinking. Nielsen pegs offline razor cartridge sales at $1.3 billion, razor handles at $427 million, and disposable razors at $1.2 billion – totaling nearly $3 billion. While disposables grew 1.8% the past year, sales of blades and handles each fell more than 4%. 
 
 Mr. Dubin's success hasn't gone unnoticed by competitors. Gillette began advertising the latest incarnation of its online sales effort – the Gillette Shave Club – in June with ads claiming its blades are 50% cheaper than the "other shave club," based on using Fusion blades for a month vs. changing Dollar blades weekly. 
 
 Nielsen shows Gillette's offline sales and share continuing to dip in recent months, and Mr. Dubin said the ads have had no noticeable impact on his business. But Slice does show Gillette's online share rebounding more than 4 points to 18.6% from June to July while Dollar Shave Club's share has slipped more than 4 points since March from a high of nearly 54%. Not coincidentally, the new Dollar Shave Club ads poke fun at shaving with old, dirty blades to save money. 
 
 Gillette is also preparing to launch an improved men's cartridge early next year and new theft-resistant packaging designed to get blades out from behind locked cases in stores – a practice that has provided fodder for Dollar Shave Club ads. 
 
 Dollar Shave Club also faces stiffer competition in cheap blades, including possibly friendly fire. Dorco, the South Korean manufacturer believed by other industry players to make the club's blades (which Dollar Shave Club won't confirm) has been more aggressively marketing its own brand online, capturing an 8.5% share of U.S. online sales last month, according to Slice. Dorco also makes value-priced Swipe blades launched at Costco earlier this year. 

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– For nearly 120 years, Gillette has comfortably assumed dominance in the US shaving market. But now it's taking on an online upstart in the courts: The company filed a suit Thursday against Dollar Shave Club, trying to stop the subscription service from selling razors Gillette says infringe on a 2004 Gillette patent involving a blade with a protective "chromium-containing overcoat layer," the Wall Street Journal and Re/code report. The AP notes the "offending products" are sold under the names Humble Twin ("a great basic shaver"), 4x (a "member favorite"), and Executive ("the final frontier … like a personal assistant for your face"). "We take every violation of our intellectual property seriously, and when necessary, we take legal action to defend our business," Damon Jones, a rep for parent company Procter & Gamble, tells the Journal. With an irreverent marketing campaign—including a YouTube video with founder Michael Dubin proclaiming, "Our blades are f---ing great"—Dollar Shave Club has scraped away a significant portion of the $3 billion US razor and blade market, scooping up 8% in just three years and claiming to overtake Schick as the No. 2 razor cartridge brand. Gillette appears to be stepping up its own game to compete, debuting the Gillette Shave Club and recruiting celebs like Giants QB Eli Manning to help hawk its products, Re/code notes. Interestingly, the lawsuit doesn't mention Dorco, the South Korean manufacturer that produces the blades used in Dollar Shave Club products. Jones tells Re/code that "[Dollar Shave Club is] actually selling the product and bringing it to market; that's why they are named in the suit." (A New York column ripped into a new Gillette razor last year.)