Traditionally copyright covers distribution. It doesn't matter whether you sell a copy or otherwise make a "profit", that is not relevant. When you distribute a cooy without permission you have infringed copyright. If you maje 100 copes if a work but never distribute them, you are all goid.
The example if copying a CD from the library is trickier. You can make as many copies as you want of a CD you bought, as long as you don't distribute the copies. But libraries have some special rights and responsibilities. They can loan books and CDs and other materials, but you as the borrower do not inherit those rights, and you have limited rights to copy library materials ( notice the number of photocopiers in libraries). Copying an entire work which you don't own is not kosher.
None of which has anything to do with patents. However the principle is likely similar. Acme corporation has a patent on the new Frobinator. Their patent clearly describes how to build a Frobinator. I'm pretty sure (based on no actual knowledge) that you can build a Frobinator for your own use, but you may not distribute it to others, even for free.
The example if copying a CD from the library is trickier. You can make as many copies as you want of a CD you bought, as long as you don't distribute the copies. But libraries have some special rights and responsibilities. They can loan books and CDs and other materials, but you as the borrower do not inherit those rights, and you have limited rights to copy library materials ( notice the number of photocopiers in libraries). Copying an entire work which you don't own is not kosher.
None of which has anything to do with patents. However the principle is likely similar. Acme corporation has a patent on the new Frobinator. Their patent clearly describes how to build a Frobinator. I'm pretty sure (based on no actual knowledge) that you can build a Frobinator for your own use, but you may not distribute it to others, even for free.
To be awarded a (US) patent, inventions have to be
- Novel
- Non-obvious
- Reproducible for anyone skilled in the art
So yes. You do have to show how to make your patented widget. There's no requirement that it has to do anything, however. See the many cable and connector patents, for example.
Tom
- Novel
- Non-obvious
- Reproducible for anyone skilled in the art
So yes. You do have to show how to make your patented widget. There's no requirement that it has to do anything, however. See the many cable and connector patents, for example.
Tom
The owner of the Copyright has to show that you deprived the owner of financial gain or damage. Otherwise there is no infringement.
On the other hand, having a patent and claiming it in advertisement is an advantage for marketing to claim "special status" of the product. Oh, look "we have a patent" so our product must be special!
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While I know little of patents (it's a type of shoe leather, yes? 
) may I say a big "Thank You!" to many inventors on this forum and similar, often who hold patents and/or have commercial presence, yet still help the DIY community? I cite Geddes and Danley specifically. Geddes is the easiest to patent infringe. You just stuff your horn speaker with acoustic foam
) may I say a big "Thank You!" to many inventors on this forum and similar, often who hold patents and/or have commercial presence, yet still help the DIY community? I cite Geddes and Danley specifically. Geddes is the easiest to patent infringe. You just stuff your horn speaker with acoustic foam
Sure, but unless you distribute the copy (sell, loan, trade, give) to another person, no such damage can occur. Like I said, if you buy a copy of the latest best seller and make copies of it for your own use, there can be no infringement, and in fact that is specifically covered, or used to be, by fair use provisions in US law.
I realize it gets hinky fast. You buy a cooy of Doug Self's latest tome. You spend your evenings reading it and copying it out longhand for your own use. No problem. Then you sell the original to a second-hand book shop. The presumption is that it is OK to sell a used book because you are not really depriving the copyright holder of a sale, because you have transferred your rights to the new owner. Now, what about the copy? Presumably you should be compelled to destroy the copy when you sell the original. Good luck enforcing that.
As someone pointed out eatlier, this is a very popular technique in the audio industry.
Technically there is infringement, but there would be no justification for an infringement suit. Nothing to gain, no percentage to pay the lawyers with.
Hey, two or three of my patents are for unique heat sinks.....that's right, just a piece of metal and PC board material. The uniqueness was the fact that it contained two or three different transistor die. Only one was used at a time, so why pay for three heat sinks, just stuff all the transistor die inside one.
I disagree Scott.
Many if not most patents are built on other patents. Is this an infringement?
No, It is the way the system is built.
For "use", yes, this infringes Patent, though one-offs are hardly ever detected or persecuted.
However Patent philosophy allows a copy "for study". Find a patent for a Steel Plow, copy it, study it, think how it could be better. Round-head bolts? Beer-holder? Patent your improvement.
As TheGimp says, "Many if not most patents are built on other patents."
This publication and build-upon benefits Society which is the justification for invention patents.
As I read it the OP perhaps built a DIY to avoid buying the thing. To "use", not "study". Although apparently OP did do some "improvements", even if not yet worth publishing or patenting. Without knowing what exactly is in the pending Patent, we can't know if he infringed all or none of it.
As Scott says, you may be allowed to build a Frobinator but you better not enjoy it. (Obviously subject to much interpretation-- a steel plow with a beer holder, "enjoyment" is a major feature of the improvement.)
Note that many, even most, Patents talk about an entire Frobinator, but the "I Claim" turns out to only cover minor and very specific details. Left-hand thread on Frob-screw. Patent US 3173407 details a complete and innovative engine, but the actual Claims are about a different way to cast the alloy block. (The clever and not-claimed head of that engine actually got built, as the Willys OHC 230, but in iron and on an existing iron block cast 1910-style.)
My primary aim was to build a cool looking Bluetooth speaker, so I went on Google images / Pinterest and that particular design stood out. I used the image to base my own version but visually and technically it is very similar to the original albeit with different electronics.
I never set out intending to rip off a patent, and it was partly an educational pursuit in that I was looking at construction methods, commercial viability of a design, production costs etc - not that I intended to sell any, but as an intellectual pursuit. A practice run at prototyping.
I just wondered how that kind of process can be legally acheived with all the restrictions on IP and copyright etc nowadays.
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Patents are designed so that innovations are put to the public for further study and to disseminate knowledge to the interested public. As such, anyone can build a patented device, for personal study. They cannot sell it, or even give it away, once they are done with it it must be destroyed, but up to that point it can be used freely by the individual who copied the patent.
Most audio "innovations" are not covered by Patents, however. That brings up different IP law, such as copyright, which is simultaneously weaker and stronger than a Patent. A direct copy of a copyrighted work is supposed to have permission of the copyright owner.
A third form of IP, the Industrial Design (which the USPTO refers to as a "Design Patent") covers the "look and feel" of certain items. Its the reason you can't just start churning out fibreglass copies of Ferrari bodies to glue on to your Honda Civic, or why certain furniture is covered by IP even though a chair is a chair is a chair. In audio things like the Chinese copies of Audio Research enclosures available on eBay violate this kind of IP. Like Copyrights, this kind of IP requires permission of the owner of the Industrial Design before you can make a copy.
Most audio "innovations" are not covered by Patents, however. That brings up different IP law, such as copyright, which is simultaneously weaker and stronger than a Patent. A direct copy of a copyrighted work is supposed to have permission of the copyright owner.
A third form of IP, the Industrial Design (which the USPTO refers to as a "Design Patent") covers the "look and feel" of certain items. Its the reason you can't just start churning out fibreglass copies of Ferrari bodies to glue on to your Honda Civic, or why certain furniture is covered by IP even though a chair is a chair is a chair. In audio things like the Chinese copies of Audio Research enclosures available on eBay violate this kind of IP. Like Copyrights, this kind of IP requires permission of the owner of the Industrial Design before you can make a copy.
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Mark my FUD post was in jest. You raise good points and I have well thought through all of them prior to now, and my current version filter is the result of all of the considerations you raise.
Consider that 'atmosphere in or of a room' is an ages old expression and describes fields. Rooms constructed of different materials and then clad/painted in different materials can be described as having different 'feel' or 'atmosphere'. JB is inserting a different/extra into the materials equation, changing the 'atmosphere' and this drives a whole bunch of things including the acoustics, this is to be expected and has been used since forever.
Then comes the question, what elements or compounds is he employing to alter local ambient fields, and what are the biological effects of these new additional field components. I have made some materials choices for well considered reasons and the result when applied to audio systems is interesting on multiple layers or levels. First is that the audio system changes (fast burn in) and then starts to couple into the structure changing the dynamic 'atmosphere' of the room. This change in fields/atmosphere changes the overall acoustic, the ears relax and the enjoyment increases. When the room is also treated, acoustic things go to another level with the room essentially disappearing and with sounds in palpable 3D space and fun production values laid bare.
We are already prone to and affected/effected by random ambient fields of many kinds, controlling at least some local ambient fields is desirable if not necessary. Deleterious fields abound, local man made fields can be turned to physiologically beneficial easily and economically.
Dan.
Scott nailed it and his analysis on this is the most insightful and instructional of all the ink spilled here or elsewhere on the matter. Most opinions on this are wishful thinking at best, often leaning more on the side of delusional and misleading. We’re at epidemic levels of misunderstanding.... 99% of feedback or speculation I’ve read here on diyaudio is simply wrong, period. This holds regardless of where you live, with perhaps minor differences.
Regurgitating Wikipedia entries won’t get us far as the fundamental definitions and assumptions are where most aren’t connecting the dots. I think everyone should scale back to what the basic definitions are before extrapolating further.
The OP modified suitably to avoid any litigation whatsoever. No company is paying lawyers under those conditions. No one is making it to a courtroom, period. Screw with McDonalds and call something a McAmplifier and you’ll get a letter. However McCormick is still making amps last I heard, litigation free.
Regarding patent pending, care to venture a guess how many items marked patent pending actually have a patent pending? How many of those are them granted? What about C? TM? Let’s shave off all of the philosophy and get down to what is actually going on here and how it plays out. That’s what’s relevant.
Direct copy is the operative phrase and is irrelevant in this discussion. Again, see Scott’s comments re: copyright, digital domain issues, schematics, etc.
Are you certain? Because I don’t believe that to be true. If you can provide compelling documentation and logic I’m willing to listen. What is IP you can’t litigate? Hint: Not IP
Why are they still on eBay? I’d like to see you attempt to have them removed on any of the above grounds. AR certainly wants to protect their brand value.
Report back with your progress.
To the OP:
Make it, even sell it. Sell 5,000 if you can. This is what most companies on the planet do. No product ever came out of a complete vacuum, even the spear and the wheel. Copy is literal- carbon copy. You are simply doing market research and having design influences.
If it’s not ripping their logo or visually or electronically identical, it’s not some completely novel device and you copied that novel functionality in its entirety (ie just one of many similar Bluetooth rolling out the doors) and your not copying an iPhone or another company that has lawyers on deck to bankrupt competition in endless litigation regardless of outcome you are just dandy.
If they bring you to court and litigate successfully based on the information you’ve provided to us here, I’ll eat my shoe and while I do so write the check to cover the damages including legal fees, all while live-streamed to the diyaudio community.
All of this armchair philosophizing is complete drivel and has no bearing on how the legal system actually plays out in this universe, for our purposes. Hence why JC doesn’t just publish his schematics in the blowtorch thread. And there’s still piles of JC2 etc. clones being sold online every day. Secrecy is the barrier, not legal ground to stand on.
Make it, even sell it. Sell 5,000 if you can. This is what most companies on the planet do. No product ever came out of a complete vacuum, even the spear and the wheel. Copy is literal- carbon copy. You are simply doing market research and having design influences.
If it’s not ripping their logo or visually or electronically identical, it’s not some completely novel device and you copied that novel functionality in its entirety (ie just one of many similar Bluetooth rolling out the doors) and your not copying an iPhone or another company that has lawyers on deck to bankrupt competition in endless litigation regardless of outcome you are just dandy.
If they bring you to court and litigate successfully based on the information you’ve provided to us here, I’ll eat my shoe and while I do so write the check to cover the damages including legal fees, all while live-streamed to the diyaudio community.
All of this armchair philosophizing is complete drivel and has no bearing on how the legal system actually plays out in this universe, for our purposes. Hence why JC doesn’t just publish his schematics in the blowtorch thread. And there’s still piles of JC2 etc. clones being sold online every day. Secrecy is the barrier, not legal ground to stand on.
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It's actually a very tricky legal point, depending on your country's legislation. In Belgium (in France too iirc), the legislation on private copies isn't specific on actually owning an original copy. It only says you must be lawfully in possession of it. The organization in charge of managing copy rights for artists recognized a few times that it opened the right to actually copy CDs borrowed from a public library... but that it had to be balanced against the Berne convention (protecting the legitimate interests of the creators).
Since it's completely unenforceable in practice, the question, afaik, has never been laid out in front of a court and remains in legal limbo. It is also rendered slowly moot by the disappearance of public libraries managing a cd collection.
But once again, it might be different in another country.
Yes.
If anyone has any evidence whatsoever of a successful IP claim in the diyaudio community within the context described, I would be extremely interested to see it. In the meantime, I’ll continue in my informed belief that almost 100% of the opinion on this topic has no basis in practical reality. This is becoming the legal equivalent of a quantum cables debate.
What the OP has described doing is firmly rooted in the very basis of free market capitalism and how consumer goods are developed. Whether you personally like that or not is completely irrelevant. By the same token the title should be changed from Cloning, as cloning is extremely specific and not an accurate description of what the OP did. For other examples (and an interesting listen in general) see here: Malcolm Gladwell Looks At Technology Innovations : NPR
If anyone has any evidence whatsoever of a successful IP claim in the diyaudio community within the context described, I would be extremely interested to see it. In the meantime, I’ll continue in my informed belief that almost 100% of the opinion on this topic has no basis in practical reality. This is becoming the legal equivalent of a quantum cables debate.
What the OP has described doing is firmly rooted in the very basis of free market capitalism and how consumer goods are developed. Whether you personally like that or not is completely irrelevant. By the same token the title should be changed from Cloning, as cloning is extremely specific and not an accurate description of what the OP did. For other examples (and an interesting listen in general) see here: Malcolm Gladwell Looks At Technology Innovations : NPR
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Right, even Nelson Pass puts the personal use only comment on some schematics. This has no legal weight at all, that's why I post everything as being in the public domain plain and simple.
Likely it’s just a gesture in his case- used as a deterrent, like a “beware of dog” sign. Sometimes giving others the impression of danger or wrongdoing is good enough in the absence of other options. Also, the amount he gives back to the community likely gives him good karma and provides a layer of defense (like with the fellows who robbed Pele, and upon realizing it was Pele promptly returned all of his stolen belongings).
I imagine Mr. Pass has a very good lawyer and understands as you do the harsh realities. A quick search on Ebay for Pass designs will make it abundantly clear. Although I’d love to hear his personal experience with / wisdom on the issue.
I imagine Mr. Pass has a very good lawyer and understands as you do the harsh realities. A quick search on Ebay for Pass designs will make it abundantly clear. Although I’d love to hear his personal experience with / wisdom on the issue.
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DIY and patents
I work at a place where patents are basically our product. I am not a patent lawyer, but due to my work I do have some familiarity with this part of the law. Here is my two cents worth.
First of all, patent infringement is not a criminal offense. There are no patent police that are going to show up and put you in jail. A patent is a license to sue someone if they violate your patent.
Next, there is much that is written in a patent that is not part of what is patented. What is patented is what is in the claims. The rest helps to define and understand what is claimed, but if you don’t violate the claims, there is no infringement.
So let’s take the example of the speakers that the OP described. Did he violate any of the claims? If it is still PP, hard to say what claims the patent office will eventually allow, if any. Also, what is the status of the patent? Is it expired? If so, it is free to use. There is also the issue of maintanence fees. If they have not been kept up, it reverts to the public early (something that I noticed was the case for one of Doug Self’s patents that was under discussion here once). And finally, what country was it patented in, and where are you?
So lets assume in the end that you do violate a claim in something that you make for your own use. What is the loss that the patent owner can sue you for? Maybe that you didn’t buy their unit, so they lost one sale. And if they can demonstrate that you knowingly and willingly infringed, they can get triple damages. And all of this plus legal fees.
So I think that the odds of any DIYer getting sued for patent infringement is very small.
But, as a DIYer, you have to ask yourself if your personal ethical standards allow for you to violate someone’s valid patent. This will vary with individuals. I personally find that it is so easy to design around the claims of a patent that it is easy to comply with both the law and my own conscious feeling of what is right or wrong.
You may have a different opinion.
I work at a place where patents are basically our product. I am not a patent lawyer, but due to my work I do have some familiarity with this part of the law. Here is my two cents worth.
First of all, patent infringement is not a criminal offense. There are no patent police that are going to show up and put you in jail. A patent is a license to sue someone if they violate your patent.
Next, there is much that is written in a patent that is not part of what is patented. What is patented is what is in the claims. The rest helps to define and understand what is claimed, but if you don’t violate the claims, there is no infringement.
So let’s take the example of the speakers that the OP described. Did he violate any of the claims? If it is still PP, hard to say what claims the patent office will eventually allow, if any. Also, what is the status of the patent? Is it expired? If so, it is free to use. There is also the issue of maintanence fees. If they have not been kept up, it reverts to the public early (something that I noticed was the case for one of Doug Self’s patents that was under discussion here once). And finally, what country was it patented in, and where are you?
So lets assume in the end that you do violate a claim in something that you make for your own use. What is the loss that the patent owner can sue you for? Maybe that you didn’t buy their unit, so they lost one sale. And if they can demonstrate that you knowingly and willingly infringed, they can get triple damages. And all of this plus legal fees.
So I think that the odds of any DIYer getting sued for patent infringement is very small.
But, as a DIYer, you have to ask yourself if your personal ethical standards allow for you to violate someone’s valid patent. This will vary with individuals. I personally find that it is so easy to design around the claims of a patent that it is easy to comply with both the law and my own conscious feeling of what is right or wrong.
You may have a different opinion.
I'm also interested in the views regarding 'mass cloning' as well, the obvious difference being that this type of production is making money off other's work for profit.
But I'm torn between a hatred for that kind of behaviour and the fact that a lot of people will make their entry into DIY Audio by purchasing such a product.
For example, my first amp was created from a NAP140 PCB. Would I have ever bought a NAIM product? No. So I don't feel that I have deprived the good people at NAIM of any money in that respect.
And what counts as a true clone anyway? Is it a product that has been copied - Circuit, layout, case, artwork and sold as if it was that product? Well I think that is more a 'counterfeit' than a 'clone' - with the emphasis on the deception. Is it a copied circuit and board layout? Well most of the ones I tend to see are altered from the original. You could say in those cases, you are paying for someone to reverse engineer the schematic and then create the Gerbers etc and produce a PCB - which is what you would do if you were making it yourself at home anyway.
I like this site because there are so many good designs that have been put into the public domain for personal use, by talented professionals and DIYers alike, that it gives people another option for creating top notch audio without lining the pockets of the 'cloners'.
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