Patent Restrictions?

[brucester]

If I could download Eric's brain into my head I would :P

Seems I have brought up a sensitive subject that I don't know a great deal about so will stay out of it :P

I figured i would quit trying to commercialize a detector idea and instead use it to find a giant nugget in the west australian outback. However, instead of dealing with lawyers and CEOs in the metal detector game, I now have to deal with pastoralists with shotguns and mining companies with their tenements and even worse lawyers.

Seems where gold is concerned, people can be quite greedy and defensive to put it politely :P

What started out as a naive fantasy quickly turned into a complicated battle. Its all part of the game i guess so will get back to analysing my flyback with my new rigol scope :P

[Carl-NC]

This one seems quite broad:

[snipped]

The TDI's GB basically works like this doesn't it? Is there some key difference that I don't see or is this patent likely actually be not enforceable ?

No, TDI works differently. If you look only at the claims and nothing else, the patent makes no sense. Read the whole patent. What is it that Minelab is really claiming? When you deal with patents, you have to take it as a whole even though, legally, the claims are where the rubber hits the road (where you can get sued). The body of the patent is supporting evidence. BTW, I've never looked into the method described in this patent, and likely never will.

Also do you have any idea why they made this two claims and not one? They seem to have just re-worded the last sentence and added the word method. Some legal difference perhaps?

Patents are often written with seemingly duplicate claims, differing only by the word "method". You not only want to patent the idea, but also the method of implementing the idea. This is standard course for patents, nothing unusual.

- Carl

[ApBerg]

IMHO the best way to capitalise your idea is to start production ASAP, and patenting it leads you to the opposite direction, away from production date, money, and time to do something really useful, like inventing something new. Or perfecting your design.
Looking at the patent repository you fail to see aeons of quality engineer time wasted to no ends. Also a huge pile money spent to no means. It is just a waste.

It gives me the creeps when politicians praise patents. Or the IMF. Or the swine flu vaccine. It is just wrong.

It gives me the creeps when politicians praise patents. Or the IMF. Or the swine flu vaccine. It is just wrong

Yes ! must be free for all if needed !!

Ap

[Ferric Toes]

IMHO the best way to capitalise your idea is to start production ASAP, and patenting it leads you to the opposite direction, away from production date, money, and time to do something really useful, like inventing something new. Or perfecting your design.
Looking at the patent repository you fail to see aeons of quality engineer time wasted to no ends. Also a huge pile money spent to no means. It is just a waste.

It gives me the creeps when politicians praise patents. Or the IMF. Or the swine flu vaccine. It is just wrong.

I agree with that philosophy. Better to spend the money in getting into production quickly and do further development, so that if the idea is copied then you bring out a Mk2 version which is ahead of the copy. That way you stay ahead. I got side tracked into industrial and security applications, which was a steadier and more profitable market at the time. I don't regret this for one moment because there are lots of ideas that can cross fertilise back into the hobby field. I had a couple of provision patents which are not too expensive, but a full patent even in the 1980's was about £1000 per country. Too much for a small growing business. OK if you have something simple for a huge market, like catseyes for the highway or ball point pens, that can be written up in a couple of pages of clear, understandable text and a diagram or two.

Eric.

[UrbanFox]

I agree with that philosophy. Better to spend the money in getting into production quickly and do further development, so that if the idea is copied then you bring out a Mk2 version which is ahead of the copy. That way you stay ahead. I got side tracked into industrial and security applications, which was a steadier and more profitable market at the time. I don't regret this for one moment because there are lots of ideas that can cross fertilise back into the hobby field. I had a couple of provision patents which are not too expensive, but a full patent even in the 1980's was about £1000 per country. Too much for a small growing business. OK if you have something simple for a huge market, like catseyes for the highway or ball point pens, that can be written up in a couple of pages of clear, understandable text and a diagram or two.

Eric.

OK Eric, When did you last release a detector to the market? GS5? was it??

Say I bought your GS5b detector for $3,850, and a short time later there was a copy available for <$1,000

You finally bring out an upgraded Mk2 machine...

OK, Will you update my machine to a Mk2? Will I be charged for the update, and will I pay the freight both ways Great Britain - Australia?

How peed off will I be that I have paid $3,850 for something that I could now purchase for under $1,000, and your solution is that I pay you more money to buy your Mk2 version?

How many repeat customers do you expect to have?

Lets say your next detector is a world beater.....and your testing in Australia gave you a lot of confidence that you were going to sell quite a few....potentially a thousand plus in Australia alone.....

* You have commercialised your ideas....ideas which you have not placed in the public domain, but also not patented;
* You have spent reasonable money on production and assembly equipment, marketing, etc;
* A forum member states they will build a better detector than you, and it will be significantly cheaper;
* A forum member acquires and reverse engineers your first detector sold and therefore has access to the IP, your IP, your new detector contains;
* It appears your IP is being progressively introduced into the detector being built by the forum member; (the forum gloating)
* It is stated that if you try to stop this forum member from commercialising "their" detector, "their" design will be given to the Chinese;
* They further insinuate that the Chinese, as you know, will ignore patents, etc, and could flood the market and destroy your business;
* (Hi Aziz + others);
* They state they have a business person currently in China who can chase up a Chinese manufacturer for "their" detector;

How do you contend with this scenario?? I am keen to hear your view, both from the point of your business, but importantly for me, from the point of myself as a purchaser of your detector.

Will you be around to give me warranty. That detector I purchased from you is now worth zilch, because not only did the copy include the best of your design, if included the best of a couple of designs put out by Whites plus a few others, and it definitely outperforms your product.

Actually Eric, can I please have my money back and I will buy that cheapie that used your R&D + Whites R&D + the R&D of a few other companies, and I can save a couple of grand. Thinking about your situation, you might not sell many more detectors, and perhaps you should start looking for your income from another avenue. What do you reckon??

EDIT: OK Eric, I think I can see where you are coming from. In a market totally unencumbered by things like patents, etc, you then copy the copier and try to do it better. You just need to copy the best IP from a wider range of manufacturers, and the best copier wins.

EDIT again: Could you explain to me please Eric, what is the motivation to put money into R&D in this scenario?? Where do future advances come from?

[dougAEGPF]

Your words “Tell me Doug, if BW was so sure of his patent securing anything, than why did he try to sell the patent to Minelab?"
Doug, didn't the letter you received from Minelab's legal representatives bring a couple of ML patents to your attention?”
You cannot validate either of these assertions and your second assertion is totally wrong!
dougAEGPF

[Davor]

Perfect trollish with pretty disheartening accent. By this reasoning Nikola Tesla would have died as an insanely rich man, being in a possession of so many patents that the whole wide World depends upon. Instead he died a pauper.

It would be utterly silly of me just to start counting all the fallacies in this rather long trollish masterpiece ... never could I believe a single troll was ever capable of showing so many two syllable words on a single pile, let alone making them remotely sound like real sentences. Kudos, you did your very best.

(they make no sense anyway)

[UrbanFox]

Your words “Tell me Doug, if BW was so sure of his patent securing anything, than why did he try to sell the patent to Minelab?"

You need to keep your mouth shut...the walls have ears.

"Doug, didn't the letter you received from Minelab's legal representatives bring a couple of ML patents to your attention?”
You cannot validate either of these assertions and your second assertion is totally wrong!
dougAEGPF

OK Doug, sent to BW, not you..... and discussed on your forum in Feb 2011.....with the letter handed out into the public arena by a member of the inner sanctum of your forum

Would you like a copy?? 10 Feb. 2011, served by process server.....referring to 20th December, 2010.

[UrbanFox]

Instead he died a pauper.

Is that your goal in life also?

[dougAEGPF]

Would you like a copy?? 10 Feb. 2011, served by process server.....referring to 20th December, 2010.

Nothing to do with the present discussion! Please stick to the topic at hand!
dougAEGPF
ps printed circuit boards are NOT integrated circuits!

[6666]

I got it!!!! I have "invented" something today. Yeeeaaaaaaaaah!!!

Thats good news Aziz .

[6666]

Goldscan 1,This will be posted in detail on the PI History and Theory thread in due course.

Thanks for the heads up Eric.

[Aziz]

Hey Urbi,

http://golddetecting.4umer.net/t1294...e-depth#121351

how many times should the customers pay for the R&D? Australian tax payers did pay them too.
Why ML isn't giving the profit margin to the customer back (making it cheaper) when producing in the cheap countries?
Why ML isn't listeting to the prospectors/detectorists need?

You know, if ML can't do it, others will be able.

Aziz

[Aziz]

Thats good news Aziz .

This little "invention" is somewhat trivial, that it isn't even worth to patent it (I know, the patent-trolls would patent every bit of it ).
I have seen the forest for the trees finally.

I will share this KISS-masterpiece with you of course.

Cheers,
Aziz

[vbeeeks]

It looks like UF bought 100s of pricy minelab equipment to sell through this forum and ended up with confronting innovators. End game here.