Printer ink, "after market" parts... and tinkering

[Brian Marshall]

http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-lexmark-supreme-court-20170531-story.html

And what do y'all think about this line - as applied to our use of our specific tools & materials in our work?

<"These issues fit into a broader fight over what some experts call the "right to tinker." The thinking goes: If you buy something, you should be free to do whatever you want with it — modify it, sell it, even destroy it.">


Or this one:

<"It also affects people building new innovations in their garage out of off-the-shelf products. In short, what you can do with the stuff you buy has real ramifications for Americans' way of life.">


Brian

 

[don hicks]

Brian,
I'm currently using a laser printer with a cartridge I refilled myself. It is a no brainer to refill the cartridge, pop out a plug , pour in toner and dump in a bottle of toner, replace plug. Cost is peanuts. I personally wouldn't take a lexmark or epson printer if you gave me one. These companies have chips on their cartridges that tell the printer the cartridges are empty even after you refill them . I had a lexmark laser printer when I had my Pharmacy, toner cartridges were around $500.00 and could be refilled for about $20.00. However even when refilled the printer was programed to see the cartridge as empty. What a rip. I say refill your own cartridges ( Canon, Brother) and take the saved money and buy more tools.
Rant over.
Cheers
Don

 

[mitch]

Brian, i just tried to send you a PM and got a "your box is full" message...

 

[John B.]

This has a lot of implications that require clarification.
Just a couple.........under this ruling are design copyrights enforceable?
And can one now photocopy a book and sell the copies.?
I think the court has left a lot of things hanging.

 

[Brian Marshall]

Figure out how it is possible for youtube to allow hundreds of thousands of copyrights to be violated on a by the minute basis?

Musicians now get less than 10% of the royalties they once got from their work (if they are very very lucky)...

Same for the producers (owners & writers) of movies, audio books, lectures, learning programs, seminars, etc.


Then there are all of the images/designs up on google. Lots of them formally legally copyrighted. Most countries do not have mutual protection agreements with the US. Access is worldwide...


There is no possible way to truly protect your ideas, writing, drawings, images, or designs once they are on the Internet - or any of the "social media."

You'd spend more time locating and trying to get private parties and companies to "cease and desist" than you'd spend at drawing, engraving, or making anything at your bench.

Not to mention what getting lawyers involved to protect your former (pre-Internet) "rights" would cost you!



There are now people and companies out there who never have to pay for a single drawing or design.

Just find what you like and use it. Re-purpose it, so to speak

After all it's "free"... "unprotected".


And that is the beginning of the complete destruction of all creators rights to make a living from their efforts... push one key and you are sharing anything you put out there with the world, for better or worse.

Think about it...



Brian


This may be why more and more companies are going to back to trade secrets and signed enforceable agreements with those few who have access? Patents are public. Trade secrets are not.

 

[MoldyJim]

Patents rights were originally designed to ENCOURAGE innovation not create monopolies.
By protecting the original idea for a specific time, by disclosing the design for others to improve upon, inventors could look at prior art and work at making new or different products.
Taking a design patent, figuring out how to make it better, cheaper or easier was the whole idea.
Literary copyrights are a different animal, Intellectual property.

Keurig coffee machines use the same kind of ripoff scheme.
The one use coffee units now have a barcode on them to prevent people from using the refillable filters.
So,,, the workaround is to take the barcode off a disposable filter and tape it to the reusable one.
Until they reprogram the things to notice the workaround it works.
We got one for Christmas, regifted it to someone else.
Just not a real good use of resources.

 

[vilts]

Figure out how it is possible for youtube to allow hundreds of thousands of copyrights to be violated on a by the minute basis?

Actually with YouTube it's not so bad at all. The songs used in videos are automatically detected and the algorithm for that is very good indeed. Once the song is identified, there are few options of what can happen.

If you bought the song and paid for it's usage rights, then you can tell that to YT (some sites sell special keys you can input to YT for proving your right to use it).

If you don't have the rights for it, then there are 2 options. The video gets taken down, or there are ads shown on your video. If there are ads, then artist will get a cut from the ad revenue.

But as always, there are edge cases and people find ways around that (like adblockers etc).

This is only for the youtube case, everything else is wild west and the cat and mouse game is going on forever.

 

[Brian Marshall]

Hey Vilts,


Maybe I'm generally in a different youtube "arena" - than the those markets that are burdened by commercials?

Try Yun Duo, Sa DingDing, Wulan Tuoya, Yunggiema 2012, or Dao Lang... millions and millions of views and listeners - very rarely commercials.

No visible remuneration for their work? - which I love - and try to purchase directly when my S/O can find sources... my Mandarin is a long, long way from being able to do this myself.


Brian

 

[sparklemotion]

This has a lot of implications that require clarification.
Just a couple.........under this ruling are design copyrights enforceable?
And can one now photocopy a book and sell the copies.?
I think the court has left a lot of things hanging.

I think that what folks are missing here is that this ruling has to do specifically with the concept of "exhaustion" of patent rights (similar to "first sale" in copyright, which has been settled for longer, though patents and copyrights give the holder much different types of protection).

This isn't about knock-offs, or copying, or youtube, this is about what one is allowed to do with something that one physically owns.

The analogy to copyright isn't: "If you buy a book, can you make a million copies?" Its: "If you buy a book, can you sell it to someone else?"

Or: If you buy a book, can you cut out the pages and make origami from it?

What the court has decided here is that once a company sells a widget, they don't get to control what the next owner of the widget does with it. This is because the widget maker has already had the benefit of their sale.

Let's look at this relevant hypothetical:

CRKT has a patent on a knife (U.S. Patent No. 7,536,788).

If someone were to take CRKT's patent (drawings and description and all) and use that to make knockoffs, they'd probably be guilty of patent infringement. Very few people would have a problem with CRKT using the court system to stop that person from doing so.

Now, let's say that a customer comes up to you with their legally purchased CRKT knife (that is, CRKT has received revenue for the knife that they created, designed, and sold). The customer asks you to engrave a pattern on the blade. You do so and get paid for your work. Should CRKT be able to stop you? What if you bought a whole bunch of knives at wholesale, engraved them, and sold them at a mark-up?

To get it even closer to the present case -- let's say that CRKT wants their knives to be disposable, so doesn't produce any means to sharpen them. But someone does 10 minutes of research and figures out a way how. Now that someone buys up a bunch of used (and seemingly worthless) dull knives, sharpens them, and resells them. Still, I think most people would be on the knife sharpener's side.

Which is all to say that while this ruling is making the Lexmarks and Keurigs of the world upset, it seems fair, and unproblematic, to me.

 

[Brian Marshall]

We already have graver blanks that are "non-factory" and interchangeable. Some far more economical, some of wider ranges (liners), some of better materials or convenience than manufacturers offer.

We have after-market holding fixtures and vise jaws & attachments that manufacturers did not see a need to tool up for... although every once in a while they do see an idea that looks profitable enough.

Most are made to work together with one system, sometimes all 4. The current systems all try to keep the buyer of a system limited to that system in one way or another. That's not working very well...

We have interchangeable and much more economical sharpening accessories - laps, diamond compounds and tons of homemade or limited run sharpening fixtures & adapters to get around "limitations".


Shortly we will have more and more "homemade" power assisted tools as well. Maybe kits offered? And there will be no patents violated - at least inside this country. They are expired.

And as we've seen in other threads - built from "off the shelf" components for a lot less money. At this point, those tools may not be as precision or pretty - but they get the job done.

Plenty of videos out there to prove it. And they can't do anything but get better (and maybe prettier?) over the next few years...


Brian

 

[Marrinan]

Brain, you are correct about parts of your comment however most long term use products like a 454 Chevy engine does not expire as it is patent pending, Indian used this to prevent others from manufacturing an opposing V twin engine,(Harley is licensed to use the patent pending opposing v twin). That is why so many products are pending they never expire, they are considered in development therefore protected

 

[Brian Marshall]

Fred. have you actually looked at the patents? I'm not a patent lawyer but pending "improvements" are not grounds to keep the basic patent "alive" from what I've read so far...

That would defeat the intent of the 20 year maximum limit. New developments/improvements seem to be separate?


https://www.stopfakes.gov/article?id=How-Long-Does-Patent-Trademark-or-Copyright-Protection-Last

https://www.legalzoom.com/articles/how-long-does-a-patent-last

https://www.hblaw.org/patents-faq-reader/how-long-do-us-patents-last.html

https://www.richardspatentlaw.com/faq/how-long-does-a-patent-last/

http://www.intellectualpropertylawfirms.com/resources/intellectual-property/patent-protection/when-d

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Term_of_patent


Brian

 

[mitch]

yeah, Brian, you are correct. there's no way to game the system for decades by keeping your patent application in 'pending' status, or by "improvements" to the original invention, either. in fact, there's really no way for an applicant to control that process at all. one has a very limited ability to be granted an extension, but the USPTO pretty much controls the timing of everything. a "pending" application must either continue to move forward through the process until it's approved or rejected, or abandoned by the applicant.

as one example, the original patents for xerography (the now ubiquitous 'xerox' machine) had started to expire before a viable product was even market ready. "Copies in Seconds" is a fascinating book about the invention of the instant copier.

 

[Brian Marshall]

Sparklemotion,


It happens all the time that people buy an audio book or a video CD, private lecture or private seminar CD and then post it on youtube for "educational" purposes to get around the "rules".

So if you buy ONE of these physical items (or pay for a recorded private lecture or seminar) you are then allowed to share it for free to a coupla million viewers? And that's fair use?


Usually not the intention of the owner/author/lecturer... and rarely any remuneration involved. (other than for the poster - who gains from "monetizing" someone elses work with advertising)


FAIR-USE COPYRIGHT DISCLAIMER (Example as seen on youtube)

* Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, commenting, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use.

1)This video has no negative impact on the original works (It would actually be positive for them)
2)This video is also for teaching purposes.
3)It is not transformative in nature.

****************** does not own the rights to these video clips. They have, in accordance with fair use, been repurposed with the intent of educating and inspiring others.



Brian

 

[sparklemotion]

Sparklemotion,

It happens all the time that people buy an audio book or a video CD, private lecture or private seminar CD and then post it on youtube for "educational" purposes to get around the "rules".

So if you buy ONE of these physical items (or pay for a recorded private lecture or seminar) you are then allowed to share it for free to a coupla million viewers? And that's fair use?

Short answer: No.

Longer answer: "Fair Use" is a copyright concept, that is codified in the statutes, but can still be tricky to actually apply.

I would guess that 95% of the time, people who are posting copyrighted works on Youtube or the like are not doing so in a way that falls under the definition of "fair use" under U.S. law (those "no copyright intended/fair use" disclaimers aren't worth the paper they are printed on... Yes, even when they aren't printed at all).

Youtube, and other "reputable" media services* are pretty copyright-owner friendly and do make it pretty easy to get copyrighted work taken down and/or properly paid for once it's reported. The problem is that a lot of stuff doesn't get reported.

I am well aware of how much of the internet is disreputable, and am not trying to make the case that piracy isn't still a problem in a logistical sense.

Legally though, the Lexmark ruling doesn't have anything to do with copying. It has to do with using an object (without copying it).