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US Marshals Haul Off One-Wheeled Skateboard in Raid at CES

posted by n1 on Saturday January 09 2016, @12:01PM   Printer-friendly
from the wanted:-wheelman dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

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.

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  • (Score: 2) by Whoever on Saturday January 09 2016, @04:55PM

    by Whoever (4524) on Saturday January 09 2016, @04:55PM (#287306) Journal

    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.

    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.

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