Open Metal Detector Project Charter

[sido]

Even that will be tough!
If you try to contact some of those manufacturers in China; first thing they will ask you is: "What is the quantity we are talking about?"
So if you name any number bellow 1000, like 50 ... 100 : most probably they will not talk with you again.

Ivconic you might have a chance to strike any deal ATM...... even as a small designer of any product seeing the way the world's Economy has become in recent times. Agree with you when competition is fierce in good times, Manufacturer's do become selective in what large manufacturing they choose to undertake.

Sid

[Davor]

How about the metal detector kit solution? It doesn't make much work to the designer. And we all can smell solder fume.

Yes, that would do. Apart from electronics everything else can be off-the-shelf, including the casings, stems, batteries... coils...

In case everything is done under "some rights reserved" copyright, it will raise considerably less eyebrows, and will not strip the charter members of royalties if at some point the rig goes commercial.

[ivconic]

I agree completely. The best thing a small timer can do is take some measures to protect his software. That bought me a couple years worth of time in the mid 1990's on a control system that I built and wrote the software for. Since all of the hardware and the EPROM with the software on it are easy to duplicate, I chose to fix it so that each individual controller board had to be initialized by me. Every time the program initialized, it performed some math functions based on the numbers in four memory locations. If the result did not match, the program froze. Simple but effective.

I am sure that system could have been cracked but using an obscure language helped as well as the fact that I did not call attention to it by stepping on the cat's tail so to speak.

Anyway, it worked well enough so I got established and then sold the business.

Jerry

Yes, that reminds me on serial&parallel "dongle-keys" i made back in 2001.
A friend is programmer, writing software in VB and VC and one day he told me he would like to protect it. So we made dongles with a piece of software included. So once software installed on PC; first it checks if there is dongle connected on serial or parallel port. Without dongle; software runs in demo mode. With dongle present; software runs fully functional.
Small 12C508 was hidden and glued in dongle with a piece of code.
Now days such technique is overcame.
Luckily now days there are powerful yet cheap processors which may do better job.

[chudster]

....will not strip the charter members of royalties......

I think I know what you mean Davor but I just wanted to clarify something and seek comment if there is a differing view.

It has not been planned that there would be any business relationship between "charter members" pooling royalties from designs etc and sharing profits. That starts to head towards a corporation with shareholders. What is presently planned is that the principles and behaviours of the charter should underpin collaboration including the right for people to have the "possibility of profits". That could be from royalties or by going into business together in some fashion using designs. The charter is there to support that but not to provide a business mechanism or even tell you how to do it. I could foresee a not for profit corporation being involved down the track but that is quite a step too.

If there is a groundswell to the opposite then I would like to know but I don't believe its what the great majority of people want.

Chudster

[sido]

Yes, that would do. Apart from electronics everything else can be off-the-shelf, including the casings, stems, batteries... coils...

In case everything is done under "some rights reserved" copyright, it will raise considerably less eyebrows, and will not strip the charter members of royalties if at some point the rig goes commercial.

Davor, your right on the mark there. If anything comes good with whats represented here as in breakthrough in developmental projects, i am certain the relevant contributors will be compensated for their efforts and not go in vain. Better to let it out in this open forum for the majority to see the progress and what is a significant stage of development that has been achieved up to date. If you have represented a given breakthrough on a forum here in a ordinary and fair matter you will be looked upon and taken aboard......hopefully and maybe a positive interest is shown from the remaining major parties involved......obviously apart from a Company that seams otherwise in the Metal detecting industry of late.

I am not a Anti ML supporter, never was and never will, nor am i agreeing in there day to day working ethics. That aside consider this.....The OTHERS will come knocking on your door for the right reasons and not the wrong ones in future for your efforts in published material in a respectable matter.

If the IP is taken by others here and developed further without prior compensation where need to be, then consider that it is there downfall. People are aware and can assume the inevitable outcome will happen and necessary parties will be ridiculed in time. If you feel as though you have something to offer significant and choose to not reveal here, by all means contact the relevant established Companies that may take you on board and no need to use this medium to vent your main interest if its otherwise not related in the hobby aspect.

As a suggestion....How about re-naming a open thread as World Detectors Inc....which refers to a virtual and neutral obligation that the collective efforts from all who contribute in some way (little or a lot) to the further development of new proven concepts in Metal detecting are acknowledged......All relevant people will be rewarded for there efforts where need to be in the future.

This will be a must for any rewards and efforts to the concerned parties who raise the issue of un-fairness. There is no other way as Carl has mentioned before and proven failures as such. Further development then can be achieved this way, by having a standard to compare with........without having nothing to compare with ATM??.

In conjunction to this, if a Company shows some interest as Tinkerer mentioned as "what is the standard or whats required to achieve this" Well this can be discussed here....and if Carl has an input with authority to do so in this matter then he shall divulge into the concerns for all to understand the limitations, if any to this matter.......... then eventually a positive and a standard agreement can be understood by all which will eventually result that some of the posters IP in future SHOULD and WILL be compensated as agreed by relevant parties involved at that time. What do you all think?

I am not after any financial gain as a builder/tester, just purely interested in the new innovations that can be achieved by ordinary talented/gifted people here and that is all.

Keep your ideas coming and something good will come out of it, If not then its each individual's prerogative where they want to take this. Take it away, you loose the fun, real reason or intention out of it. If you feel something otherwise, then take it somewhere where you are rewarded for it, then we all will support and agree with your chosen path without exception.

Sid

[Davor]

Strange, but I had an impression that the financial side of the charter was the stumbling stone in the whole commercial design story and patenting (without patenting). My view from the beginning was that most of the exchange will be on the level of schematic and source code exchange, and those are covered by Copyright, e.g. by their coming to existence, or if the contributors decide so, by Creative Commons with some rights reserved. This can be done using some non-repudiation and validation services because it is quite easy to write under alias (e.g. forum nick etc.) and still have full control over the art usage.

I myself have no financial expectations with any of my hobby projects. If I sell something now and then, it is just because barter is not always an option, and I like my expenses covered. I will not refuse a financial reward though.

Commercial projects are a completely different ball game.

[ivconic]

Strange, but I had an impression that the financial side of the charter was the stumbling stone in the whole commercial design story and patenting (without patenting). My view from the beginning was that most of the exchange will be on the level of schematic and source code exchange, and those are covered by Copyright, e.g. by their coming to existence, or if the contributors decide so, by Creative Commons with some rights reserved. This can be done using some non-repudiation and validation services because it is quite easy to write under alias (e.g. forum nick etc.) and still have full control over the art usage.

I myself have no financial expectations with any of my hobby projects. If I sell something now and then, it is just because barter is not always an option, and I like my expenses covered. I will not refuse a financial reward though.

Commercial projects are a completely different ball game.

Yeah, that's the bump i stumped on.
At the beginning i also though: "What the hell, that's only a nice hobby. I don't expect money. All i expect is pleasure of making things alive"
But appetite for learning grows more with each design i deal with. Simple designs don't need much money. But once, eventually, you get fed up with simple designs and want to make a step more. So completely unknowingly you step in to quiet different world, world of expensive "hobby" which will demand constant money investings to make further progress.
More advance "hobby" demands more advanced tools (instruments etc..), more advanced tools demands more money!
At the end of a day you are faced with lack of decent money to invest if you want to continue the "game".
One thing leads to another and all of the sudden you wake up one day as "producer&seller&manager" thinking mostly on money and not on previous enthusiasm you had.
Right now i am all up to gaining money to buy digital 2 channel scope! Detectors? What was that?

[chudster]

I am not a Anti ML supporter, never was and never will, nor am i agreeing in there day to day working ethics. That aside consider this.....The OTHERS will come knocking on your door for the right reasons and not the wrong ones in future for your efforts in published material in a respectable matter.

If the IP is taken by others here and developed further without prior compensation where need to be, then consider that it is there downfall. People are aware and can assume the inevitable outcome will happen and necessary parties will be ridiculed in time. If you feel as though you have something to offer significant and choose to not reveal here, by all means contact the relevant established Companies that may take you on board and no need to use this medium to vent your main interest if its otherwise not related in the hobby aspect.
Sid

That is the problem. Allegedly, ML 'overpatents'. That is it is said that it applies for a patent even though it has already been invented and used by someone else and maybe even published. You can get away with it if the patent is never challenged or there is not a good record that it was disclosed in public.

I did say allegedly. If anyone knows this has happened for sure then that is information that would be good for people ML has pursued over patents to know and fine to post openly for discussion. I think I saw in one thread discussion of whether one ML patent was being questioned as invalid.

Leaving aside whether ML does or doesn't do that- someone else could. This is the problem with secrecy. You can keep it secret and someone 'skilled in the art' can reverse engineer your secret and then patent it. Your trade secret becomes their patent! It might be possible to invalidate it if you prove they 'copied' but that also may not happen unless they take the person they copied to court as that person is still probably pursuing secrecy and the others (being sued) may not be aware it was invented by someone else unless they reverse engineer.

And even as Minelab agreed, there was no way they could stop the SD2000 schematic being published on Geotech. After all Zed actually owned the copyright to that circuit diagram! But they could warn about the patents that might be embodied. So even Minelab tells us that only patents count and its true. Unlike with software, there is an inherent legal right to copy hardware. Under law, really only patents matter for hardware.

Now to the part in bold:
If true it is not their downfall. It appears to be their strength.

Now to the large font:
Not to excuse any over the top behaviour but the 'ridiculing' by some people of Minelab's patents might be caused by that.

This is a tough problem that you could pay some IP lawyers to solve- maybe. Their advice would be to patent .... Ka- ching here is the next invoice. You can see the path to secrecy has its problems. Even openly publishing may not stop a party patenting. Patent and Carl is right. You have to have $100 000s and nerves of steel. Maybe we have nerves of steel but when you compare our resources to a corporation protecting $98 million of revenue it is no contest- unless there is a billionaire philanthropist lurking in Geotech.

Should we forget it and keep things as they are or maybe start collecting stamps?

Overall, one solution is to work with an industry player to bring your design to market. There is no reason why that could not even be Minelab. Industry players are already are invested in the game and know how to play.

I think we are a smart and innovative enough bunch to figure out how to organize and work together to solve this problem.

Chudster

[ivconic]

...
Overall, one solution is to work with an industry player to bring your design to market. There is no reason why that could not even be Minelab. Industry players are already are invested in the game and know how to play.

I think we are a smart and innovative enough bunch to figure out how to organize and work together to solve this problem.

Chudster

In this world where money talks and .... walks that's pretty naive attitude.
Especially now when terrible economic crises eating up the whole world.
Bankruptcy and recession are knocking on everybody's door.
So i am not enthusiastic upon any chance that some of the major players will act fair upon small independent and unprotected idea.
These are rapacity times.
Therefore only way out from this would be a group of people to organize in some legal form.
But behind them there still should be strong financial backup or otherwise those people will just waste time.
No money - no game.
Sad.

[sido]

By keeping your ideas open here for all to see, it allows all interested Metal Detector Companies to evaluate if any IP has been infringed. No excuse for a major metal detector company not to be aware of a forum of this nature. In a court system, it is reasonable to assume that a business has taken measured steps to protect there IP. The Company in question has before voiced there concerns here previously with the published SD2000 Schematics, so we assume and so will the court system for that matter that they watch this space, on this forum on a regular basis.

If a Company ignores to take further action (either by email, letter of concern etc) when they have become aware of such infringements and have not taken timely steps to intervene then it is considered that they have no vested interest and see no IP infringed.

Eventually if you are taken to court, the overall court decision outcome will turn in your favor when ever you argue this point. The argument is negligence on there behalf.

Publish whatever you want here. If you do not hear from anyone voicing there concerns of infringing IP in months down the track, then you have nothing to worry about and its assumed that no IP has been breached.

In saying this, you do have to make a reasonable attempt to check known existing IP so no infringement is encountered on your behalf.

Oh and BTW, do not patent it, worst mistake you could ever do. If its worth patenting, then consider selling the idea to a major player, which avoids you the legal loopholes that can come back to bite you..

Sid

[chudster]

By keeping your ideas open here for all to see, it allows all interested Metal Detector Companies to evaluate if any IP has been infringed. No excuse for a major metal detector company not to be aware of a forum of this nature. In a court system, it is reasonable to assume that a business has taken measured steps to protect there IP. The Company in question has before voiced there concerns here previously with the published SD2000 Schematics, so we assume and so will the court system for that matter that they watch this space, on this forum on a regular basis.

If a Company ignores to take further action (either by email, letter of concern etc) when they have become aware of such infringements and have not taken timely steps to intervene then it is considered that they have no vested interest and see no IP infringed.

Eventually if you are taken to court, the overall court decision outcome will turn in your favor when ever you argue this point. The argument is negligence on there behalf.

Publish whatever you want here. If you do not hear from anyone voicing there concerns of infringing IP in months down the track, then you have nothing to worry about and its assumed that no IP has been breached.

In saying this, you do have to make a reasonable attempt to check known existing IP so no infringement is encountered on your behalf.

Oh and BTW, do not patent it, worst mistake you could ever do. If its worth patenting, then consider selling the idea to a major player, which avoids you the legal loopholes that can come back to bite you..

Sid

Careful with this advice Sid. A company could reasonably argue that the info was published but their patent was only used for non infringing use (ie Educational Use and R&D) and so they took no action- however because of action X infringement has now occurred.

Ivconic,
Again, per my previous post. Are you suggesting some kind of well funded group is needed or desirable? Don't expect that to happen. Any savvy investor will look at the intensity of competition and barriers to entry and ask where are your patents and how will you beat the incumbent players? Google "Porter's Five Forces". It is true too that no one will pay you for your technology out of the goodness of their heart. It would be a commercial deal subject to market conditions including hard times.

So take it that you are unlikely to be given millions to pursue this. I would argue that we have some strategic advantages that industry players have a hard time in replicating. The problem is that we continue to play by their rules and your conclusion that this is a losing game for us appears sound. Sort of like playing poker where the rules are that they can see your cards and you can't see theirs. They have millions and you have $100 to bet.

So what are the rule changes that we would like and are able to make? What can we do that they cannot?

Or is it time to change hobbies and buy that stamp album?

Chudster

[ivconic]

Careful with this advice Sid. A company could reasonably argue that the info was published but their patent was only used for non infringing use (ie Educational Use and R&D) and so they took no action- however because of action X infringement has now occurred.

Ivconic,
Again, per my previous post. Are you suggesting some kind of well funded group is needed or desirable? Don't expect that to happen. Any savvy investor will look at the intensity of competition and barriers to entry and ask where are your patents and how will you beat the incumbent players? Google "Porter's Five Forces". It is true too that no one will pay you for your technology out of the goodness of their heart. It would be a commercial deal subject to market conditions including hard times.

So take it that you are unlikely to be given millions to pursue this. I would argue that we have some strategic advantages that industry players have a hard time in replicating. The problem is that we continue to play by their rules and your conclusion that this is a losing game for us appears sound. Sort of like playing poker where the rules are that they can see your cards and you can't see theirs. They have millions and you have $100 to bet.

So what are the rule changes that we would like and are able to make? What can we do that they cannot?

Or is it time to change hobbies and buy that stamp album?

Chudster

Sadly that's true.
Yes i think such well funded group is desirable.
Plain exchanging ideas and works between several individuals is nothing without having status of "legal-form-subject" (excuse me for my proper French) in eyes of
the (preferably international) law.
Yet, legal-form-subject status is not possible without more serious organizing, logistic and ... of course the funds!
Without such approach, what we'll have?
Just a group of individuals with nice intentions and ideas; but "vulnerable" and liable to any kind of malversation ... same as we have now.

[goldnugget]

Hi all....Ive been lurking for a while but this is my first post here.

I think even early stage discussions you need to be cautious as unique and novel concepts discussed or mentioned in public can still be taken and run with by can established company without any further discussion or permision requests from them and patented as their own. I believe this has happened already in my case where I was discussing a combination of technologies within a detecting machine back in 2010 and then last weekend spotted a machine with 3 publicised features I had discussed in a thread. After reviewing a patent based on the machine I see a fourth distinct and unique feature discussed in the thread was included in the patent.
The thread in question was on Finders forum and if you wanted to have a look at that and draw your own conclusion, the thread you are looking for is 'Hmmm...is it novel' (Only a few threads below the most recent). That forum is one that was and still is frequented by either the manufacturer itself or their representatives in Australia. To me, the coincedences are too many to be incorporated within one machine in the time frame after that post. Personally I have no doubt of what has happened and even if it was one employee that read the post and decided to pass it off as his own that the matter should be rectified in good faith now that it is known (but wont hold my breath).

My suggestion is this. Sort out the whos who of your group, then go private discussing 'ANY' aspect of any new developments relating to any proposed new machine or components realted at all to any new machine. WHile going public may offer some notable reference, it will still have to go to court to reach a suitable outcome.

Good luck with it.

[sido]

Careful with this advice Sid. A company could reasonably argue that the info was published but their patent was only used for non infringing use (ie Educational Use and R&D) and so they took no action- however because of action X infringement has now occurred.

Chudster

Was referring to new ideas here and not based on known IP.

Well if it gets to that point of intimidation, where maybe kits will be become available to hobbiests and the concern is fear of being sued.......then how about sending off the open published material (even if it means program code without source) by direct mail, email etc to all Companies in question prior to manufacture of such kits. Allow them enough time to evaluate if there own IP has been infringed. Either you get a response of concern or hear nothing from it.

Post it on there open forums also if you have not heard from them, even if they would not like it. Get several people to take screen shots for further back up documents if need to be. Make it harder for them to use an excuse and avoid negligence, that they were not aware of a given design going into some form of production or another excuse that, we allowed its design parameters only open for Educational and R&D purposes and did not know of its pending production, even though we new it was breaching some part of our IP in its early design stage.

Make every effort to show them your intention is to manufacture a given new idea if thats what your after, either as kits or whatever and show them this is the material it will be based upon and hopefully no intentional infringement of IP is breached.

It seams this is a extreme final approach to avoid any such IP infringement and being sued down the track in court. If the new design idea is good enough for a given Company to take it, expand on it and use it for there own purposes. I am sure they will find it hard to patent it for there own exclusive rights.

And even if they do, this will allow people here to continue on with further design of a chosen and agreed platform without any of the recent set backs.

Enough said from me and wish everyone a positive outcome in this hobby of detector design.

Sid

[Midas]

Was referring to new ideas here and not based on known IP.

Well if it gets to that point of intimidation, where maybe kits will be become available to hobbiests and the concern is fear of being sued.......then how about sending off the open published material (even if it means program code without source) by direct mail, email etc to all Companies in question prior to manufacture of such kits. Allow them enough time to evaluate if there own IP has been infringed. Either you get a response of concern or hear nothing from it.

Post it on there open forums also if you have not heard from them, even if they would not like it. Get several people to take screen shots for further back up documents if need to be. Make it harder for them to use an excuse and avoid negligence, that they were not aware of a given design going into some form of production or another excuse that, we allowed its design parameters only open for Educational and R&D purposes and did not know of its pending production, even though we new it was breaching some part of our IP in its early design stage.

Make every effort to show them your intention is to manufacture a given new idea if thats what your after, either as kits or whatever and show them this is the material it will be based upon and hopefully no intentional infringement of IP is breached.

It seams this is a extreme final approach to avoid any such IP infringement and being sued down the track in court. If the new design idea is good enough for a given Company to take it, expand on it and use it for there own purposes. I am sure they will find it hard to patent it for there own exclusive rights.

And even if they do, this will allow people here to continue on with further design of a chosen and agreed platform without any of the recent set backs.

Enough said from me and wish everyone a positive outcome in this hobby of detector design.

Sid

Unfortunetly Sid I don't believe there is any onus on a patent holder to enforce a patent as soon as they become aware of an infringement or 'forever hold their peace'. If they want to wait till you've got an established business so that your actually worth suing then thats their right. If you are really obvious about it AND the company offered others use of the IP under license then they probably would have an obligation to their licencies to act. But as far as I'm aware though ML don't offer their tech to anyone else under license, so when and whether they sue or not probably comes down to what will be most profitable for them.

Midas