CES is full of wild sights, but you don't often see US Marshals raid a display booth.
On Thursday, gadget lovers were treated to the sight of federal law enforcement officials packing up a booth run by Changzhou First International Trade Co., which makes a one-wheeled skateboard called the Trotter.
The raid was prompted by an emergency motion for injunctive relief filed by California-based Future Motion, which makes a similar board that balances over a single wheel, imaginatively called the One Wheel. The raid was earlier reported by Bloomberg.
The Marshals' actions highlights tension at the country's biggest consumer gadget tradeshow over cheap knock-offs and copy cats. The annual Las Vegas tradeshow often features bargain basement tech that appears to closely resemble existing products, some of which are protected by patents.
(Score: 3, Funny) by isostatic on Saturday January 09 2016, @12:12PM
Quick an american company has competition from abroad! Lets use the power of the US to ensure that can't happen!
(Score: 3, Informative) by Gravis on Saturday January 09 2016, @01:12PM
the fact that it's an american company is coincidental. they have own the patent for the device. unlike most bullshit patents, this is actually an entire product they sell, not a component and not just an idea. frankly, this is the most relevant use of a patent i've seen in a long time. patents are crap but this is how they were originally intended to be used.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by fnj on Saturday January 09 2016, @01:25PM
All patents are bullshit. The concept is bullshit. They are corruption. Period.
(Score: 3, Touché) by CirclesInSand on Saturday January 09 2016, @04:08PM
But without patents, how are we supposed to stop people from making better products than us? It was my idea first!
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 09 2016, @04:00PM
So a board with a wheel on it is now patent worthy? Really?
The US isn't anymore innovative than anyone else. We're not special (in a good way). It copies from others just as much as others copy from us. It's just that the U.S. is a lot more petty when it comes to copying everyone, keeping track of who else sells what products, and pointing fingers at each other whining over who copied whom like little children. For grown adults in law enforcement to confiscate something because he (allegedly) copied me looks immature.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 09 2016, @04:27PM
And what's interesting is that this product was backed by kickstarter. I thought the whole point of patents is to recoup your R&D costs but here you have kickstarter providing the initial funding and you have kickstarter contributors making donations not in return for ownership and profit but in return for seeing the product come to market. What they did was more than just risk their money hoping for an ROI, they gave their money freely hoping for a product. Necessity is the mother of innovation. Yet these selfish people developed something with someone else's money and took the patents for themselves to personally profit off of. Kickstarter should either forbid this or they should require kickstarter recipients to disclose their intent to possibly enforce or not to enforce patents to all potential contributors beforehand. If the recipient indicates that he won't be enforcing patents beforehand then that should be legally binding if they receive money.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 09 2016, @04:36PM
And of course said patents should be unenforceable even if transferred. Because our legal system always manages to intentionally create some sneaky backhanded gotcha.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Saturday January 09 2016, @04:55PM
The root of the problem is laws that are supposed to protect the less well off from predatory "investment opportunities". Kickstarter and its ilk cannot offer a share of the ownership of the company producing the product because those types of risky investments are reserved for the wealthy (supposedly sophisticated investors) . For similar historical examples, look at how "The Closure" was the beginning of the end of Venice as a major trading power.
(Score: 2) by CirclesInSand on Saturday January 09 2016, @05:50PM
I thought the whole point of patents is to recoup your R&D costs
No. It has become that, but it is a bad reason.
Originally the public reason was to prevent knowledge from being lost. If you patent something, then you have to describe how it works. The monopoly is a trade for disclosure, any R&D reimbursement is just coincidental.
This is also why designs that can be deduced from a working product shouldn't be patented. There is no public benefit of disclosure, because the public knows the design sufficiently just from inspecting the product.
If someone wants R&D to be reimbursed, he should just get in line with the rest of the well dressed Washington DC beggars.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 09 2016, @08:57PM
Did you hear about that new European company? It's called Apple. And the one from Africa, Google. Oh and The Chinese company, Microsoft. Wow I wish the US were as innovative as the rest of the world.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 10 2016, @09:51AM
Because we never had phones or music before Apple. Never had search engines before Google. And never had spyware and malware before Microsoft.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by CirclesInSand on Saturday January 09 2016, @01:06PM
cheap knock-offs and copy cats.
Oh Bullshit. This isn't about one company fraudulently pretending to be another company. There are some good reasons to support anti-fraud and anti-ID theft laws.
This is about one business protecting its monopoly from competition using patents. Patents aren't for protecting developers, they are for protecting incumbent business owners from developers.
(Score: 2) by Hyperturtle on Saturday January 09 2016, @06:30PM
How do you propose to discern which is the cheap copy cat knockoff and which is not, without using some sort of formal registration system that is honored enough to help determine who the truly inventive are, and who is looking to profit from the fruits of others ideas?
Information wants to be free, sure. If I invented something, and it was cool enough to sell, I would like to recoup some of the time spent testing and making sure I wasnt sued into oblivion for battery explosions and such, and also would prefer to see that someone in another country doesn't introduce a product that looks... just like mine.
The bloomberg article has this quote: "the design patent drawing next to an accused product side by side, and they look identical"
It also references how it seems like just recently, there has been an explosion of all very similar hoverboards being manufactured by factories all over china, where there had been no previously known R&D about it.
I am not the one to ask how to determine why it is that when a few popular items get introduced in the US, many "cheap knockoffs" come about in China--this has been evident for a long time. The freely available nature of information on the Internet has likely sped up the process of such things, unless one would like to argue that it seems that China possess a natural talent to come up with ideas second, when most other countries don't seem to have similar correlations going on with them.
All I know is that if this is a true case of copying his idea and then displaying the fruits of his labors after having mass produced it for cheap without attributing anything to the creator -- I'd be upset for him and upset at the people that copied his idea. He put a lot of effort into it, and a lot of it is chronicled online.
There doesn't appear to be any similar event history with the "knock off" manufacturers. Not even prototypes for sale; just a finished product that was mass produced. But I admit I haven't spent more than an hour looking.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by CirclesInSand on Saturday January 09 2016, @08:24PM
If I invented something
You didn't. Thousands of years of human research invented it. And if someone actually competent intended on creating your product, they could do it in a quarter of the time and half the cost because they are more educated in those thousands of years of human research. You are mistaken in thinking that you are intelligent enough to invent something that a competent person couldn't do just as well or better.
I would like to recoup some of the time spent testing
All designers have to do testing. Being first or last doesn't change that.
and also would prefer to see that someone in another country doesn't introduce a product that looks... just like mine.
And I wants hugs from every pretty girl I meet. So what?
All I know is that if this is a true case of copying his idea
Again, this thing thinking that an idea has market value. It doesn't. Products have market value. Go to a business and try to sell them an idea. "I have this idea..." and they'll kick you out. Go to a business and say "I want to make..." and they might hear you out.
Being first to market is enough of an advantage. If you have good prices, good options, good customer experience, these things that actually compose BUSINESS skills, then you won't have to worry about people copying you. If you are first, and they can't provide a better offer to customers, then you'll make money. If you are first, but you show up with crap, then you deserve to go broke. Patents are just forcing people to buy crap.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 09 2016, @05:16PM
The Marshals came to enforce a design patent. I thought that was like the style of a chair. It can't prevent you from making any chair, just one that looks like the one in the patent.
Designing something is about form and function. For a one wheeled hoverboard, the single wheel in the middle with a low CG seems about function. Maybe some parts of the paint and shape are non-functional and so all form.
The Marshals came because the knockoff looked similar to the patented gadget. Was the similarity of necessity to get the function? Does this matter when enforcing a design patent?
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 09 2016, @06:30PM
If the marshals were enforcing a design patent, that makes the situation even more ridiculous. Whether or not something "looks like" something else is largely subjective.
Designing something should be first about function and, afterward, perhaps about form -- "form follows function."
In regards to the function and also the design/form, there certainly is prior art:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=462Jj1xSSqc [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=engi16bLJe0 [youtube.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2016, @02:49PM
These are all very old ideas. The SoloWheel was originally called the BC Wheel. Anyone over 50 who read newspaper comics as a kid will know why. My guess is that they changed the name from BC Wheel to SoloWheel to obscure the "prior art" for their patent application.
Here's my favorite "prior art" -- http://owv.berkeley.edu/ [berkeley.edu]
Isn't OneWheel just a miniaturized version of this concept?
No, it's not.
Design patents cover the usage of an item as well as the style of it.
(Score: 2) by el_oscuro on Sunday January 10 2016, @01:19AM
It was a one wheel hoverboard with a fat tire like these. However there was one important difference: The rider was straddling the tire and was riding it like a unicycle. Strangest looking thing but kind of cool.
Though if I wanted to get something like a hoverboard, I'd get one of these [boostedboards.com].
SoylentNews is Bacon! [nueskes.com]
(Score: 2) by Hyper on Sunday January 10 2016, @12:38PM
Do you mean a powered unicycle? http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss/191-2063098-9956503?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Motorized+Unicycle+x3&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3AMotorized+Unicycle+x3 [amazon.com]