If you were held in contempt of court for shutting down your service, how are you supposed to get out of contempt? By turning your service back on again? Do you continue to be in contempt until you wave your magic wand and get back all the goodwill and users which you had prior to the whole fiasco?
You should probably cover the carbon vs. stainless steel blades distinction at some point - Gillette had the patent on stainless steel blades (boy is *that* a dubious patent) and was in no rush whatsoever to bring the longer-lasting ones to market.
I don't think it's negligence that resulted in the sawmakers not using it -- but a recognition that the method was too expensive for the consumer value.
There I think you've got it wrong. This article has some real numbers on costs, and my very conservative estimates are that the costs to a consumer of the hazard of a saw are at least $50,000 (price of finger) * 1/50 (changes of a given saw cutting off a finger) = $1,000 while the costs of adding the technology are at most $150 (materials and manufacturing) + $150 (max licensing fee for an expensive machine) = $300. This, ahem, very strongly makes an economic case for the feature, and the fact that a no-name company has become successful selling table saws based on it provides an existence proof of its viability as well.
Whether it was poor judgement or an anti-safety conspiracy which led to the manufacturers not licensing the feature is something one could debate, but the applicability of liability here is very clear cut, unless one believes that noone should have product liability for anything ever.
I just find it troubling that a patented technology should ever be required purchasing. It seems to go against the whole exclusive rights part of the patent system.
We seem to disagree with where the logic has gone off the rails here. I believe the logic behind the liability in this case is rock solid - seriously, have you *seen* how effective the sawstop is? Do you know how common lost fingers are? My opinion is that the system goes off the rails at the point where it gives a flat monopoly protection with no exceptions where something is crucial to the public good. That is assuming, of course, that the monopoly should be granted at all in the first place. I agree with what other commenters have said about this being an unusually non-abusive patent, but even in this case I think things would be much the same even if there were no patents - sawstop would have still invented their safety device, and still have started selling high end saws based on it, they just would have gone straight to manufacturing their own and not wasted time trying to license the technology first.
As for Sawstop lauding this court decision, my guess is that whoever's behind it has an honest concern for keeping peoples's fingers from getting cut off. Sure it's probably good for their business (and would be without patents too) but there's no need to assume machiavellian motivation.
To be fair to Sawstop, there's no clear reason to think they've done anything wrong. It's quite likely that the main cost of adding the new safety technology isn't the patent licensing costs, but in the rather extensive enhancements it requires to the machine itself. A friend of mine got a Sawstop, not particularly because he cares about the safety feature, but because it's by far the best table saw on the market.
You're right that there's the potential that Sawstop *could* do something unethical, if there are more lawsuits and their safety technology becomes de facto necessary, and they then charge exhorbitant rates for license to their patent, that might raise some serious ethical issues. For the meantime though, I'm inclined to view them as good inventors who make a good product which has saved many peoples's fingers so far and which they tried to license out on what I'm willing to assume were completely reasonable terms. The real bad guys here are the other table saw manufacturers, who had access to a finger-saving technology and chose to ignore it in the interest of preserving short-term profits, and are now rightfully getting the smackdown for it. This story would probably have played out the same way whether or not there was a patent on the Sawstop safety device.
That said, a private company having a patent on a crucial safety technology raises some serious potential ethical problems, but there isn't particularly strong reason to think that those have happened yet in this case. At least it's clear that Sawstop are actual table saw manufacturers, and good ones at that, rather than patent trolls.
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Getting out of contempt
If you were held in contempt of court for shutting down your service, how are you supposed to get out of contempt? By turning your service back on again? Do you continue to be in contempt until you wave your magic wand and get back all the goodwill and users which you had prior to the whole fiasco?
You should probably cover the carbon vs. stainless steel blades distinction at some point - Gillette had the patent on stainless steel blades (boy is *that* a dubious patent) and was in no rush whatsoever to bring the longer-lasting ones to market.
Re: Re: Re: Re: To be fair to Sawstop, they've probably done nothing wrong
I don't think it's negligence that resulted in the sawmakers not using it -- but a recognition that the method was too expensive for the consumer value.
There I think you've got it wrong. This article has some real numbers on costs, and my very conservative estimates are that the costs to a consumer of the hazard of a saw are at least $50,000 (price of finger) * 1/50 (changes of a given saw cutting off a finger) = $1,000 while the costs of adding the technology are at most $150 (materials and manufacturing) + $150 (max licensing fee for an expensive machine) = $300. This, ahem, very strongly makes an economic case for the feature, and the fact that a no-name company has become successful selling table saws based on it provides an existence proof of its viability as well.
Whether it was poor judgement or an anti-safety conspiracy which led to the manufacturers not licensing the feature is something one could debate, but the applicability of liability here is very clear cut, unless one believes that noone should have product liability for anything ever.
Re: Re: To be fair to Sawstop, they've probably done nothing wrong
I just find it troubling that a patented technology should ever be required purchasing. It seems to go against the whole exclusive rights part of the patent system.
We seem to disagree with where the logic has gone off the rails here. I believe the logic behind the liability in this case is rock solid - seriously, have you *seen* how effective the sawstop is? Do you know how common lost fingers are? My opinion is that the system goes off the rails at the point where it gives a flat monopoly protection with no exceptions where something is crucial to the public good. That is assuming, of course, that the monopoly should be granted at all in the first place. I agree with what other commenters have said about this being an unusually non-abusive patent, but even in this case I think things would be much the same even if there were no patents - sawstop would have still invented their safety device, and still have started selling high end saws based on it, they just would have gone straight to manufacturing their own and not wasted time trying to license the technology first.
As for Sawstop lauding this court decision, my guess is that whoever's behind it has an honest concern for keeping peoples's fingers from getting cut off. Sure it's probably good for their business (and would be without patents too) but there's no need to assume machiavellian motivation.
To be fair to Sawstop, they've probably done nothing wrong
To be fair to Sawstop, there's no clear reason to think they've done anything wrong. It's quite likely that the main cost of adding the new safety technology isn't the patent licensing costs, but in the rather extensive enhancements it requires to the machine itself. A friend of mine got a Sawstop, not particularly because he cares about the safety feature, but because it's by far the best table saw on the market.
You're right that there's the potential that Sawstop *could* do something unethical, if there are more lawsuits and their safety technology becomes de facto necessary, and they then charge exhorbitant rates for license to their patent, that might raise some serious ethical issues. For the meantime though, I'm inclined to view them as good inventors who make a good product which has saved many peoples's fingers so far and which they tried to license out on what I'm willing to assume were completely reasonable terms. The real bad guys here are the other table saw manufacturers, who had access to a finger-saving technology and chose to ignore it in the interest of preserving short-term profits, and are now rightfully getting the smackdown for it. This story would probably have played out the same way whether or not there was a patent on the Sawstop safety device.
That said, a private company having a patent on a crucial safety technology raises some serious potential ethical problems, but there isn't particularly strong reason to think that those have happened yet in this case. At least it's clear that Sawstop are actual table saw manufacturers, and good ones at that, rather than patent trolls.