Clones with original manufacturer names

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kambo said:

Sometimes, its best to take a step back and count to ten. The internet provides ample opportunity for that, since theres no time-limit on (or requirement for) an answer.

Be well.

Gustav
 
The "personal use" argument is moot. I knew a guy who made near-perfect copies of LP Standard, down to the logo. Under "popular" demand, he started selling them. The persons he sold them to knew well they were copies, but they got tempted, and started selling them and passing them as authentic.
Do you know most forgers in the art business started making them as homages, butsoon someone realised the potential profit and convinced them to start criminal activity?
 
abbey road d enfer said:
The "personal use" argument is moot. I knew a guy who made near-perfect copies of LP Standard, down to the logo. Under "popular" demand, he started selling them. The persons he sold them to knew well they were copies, but they got tempted, and started selling them and passing them as authentic.
Do you know most forgers in the art business started making them as homages, butsoon someone realised the potential profit and convinced them to start criminal activity?

The "personal use" argument is moot.  :  it sure is...

to me, if u are making music for fun, have a home studio
for fun ,not doing anything commercial,  is personal use.
is this case building a clone with exact near specs and logo, is like model making... great fun.

but, if u are making money, even from ur bedroom studio, is not personal use anymore.
slapping a logo or not doesnt change a thing for me...


 
kambo said:
abbey road d enfer said:
The "personal use" argument is moot. I knew a guy who made near-perfect copies of LP Standard, down to the logo. Under "popular" demand, he started selling them. The persons he sold them to knew well they were copies, but they got tempted, and started selling them and passing them as authentic.
Do you know most forgers in the art business started making them as homages, butsoon someone realised the potential profit and convinced them to start criminal activity?

The "personal use" argument is moot.  :  it sure is...
Not to be more contrary than usual, there are fair use exceptions worth noting even with patented technology. The whole premise of the patent system is that you trade publication of your invention to advance the art in return for exclusive "commercial" use for a finite time period. It is not expected that nobody will melt solder for 2 decades or so waiting for your invention to expire so "experimental use" is allowed, as long as you are doing this to learn and advance the technology and not for commercial gain that injures the patent holder.

Arguably a one-off DIY copy of protected circuitry is within the realm of experimental use, while selling such experiments or using them in business crosses the line into unlawful behavior. Of course copying a logo/trademark is just wrong.


to me, if u are making music for fun, have a home studio
for fun ,not doing anything commercial,  is personal use.
is this case building a clone with exact near specs and logo, is like model making... great fun.

but, if u are making money, even from ur bedroom studio, is not personal use anymore.
slapping a logo or not doesnt change a thing for me...

A great deal of older, and not so old circuit design is public domain (if not specifically protected) so free to use. I have even had a competitor copy a mixer of mine so closely they used my data sheet numbers instead of building and measuring one of theirs.  :eek: :eek:

JR
 
Just to take the fair use idea a stage further with regard to patents it is important to remember that the idea of patents is to grant commercial advantage for innovation. Infringing a patent is not unlawful (it is not a criminal offence). It is a civil tort or a wrong doing and the patent owner can sue in the civil court for damages.  If someone copies a patented idea but there is no commercial gain then the plaintiff is unlikely to sue because the court will want him to demonstrate the commercial advantage.

In the consumer electronics arena, patents are bread and butter and are basically  a hand of cards that let you play at the  patent poker table. To give an example, many years ago I worked for a company that developed and sold a specific type of product. They developed an electronic version but were sued by a competitor for infringement of a patent and had to withdraw the product in one particular market. We were engaged to develop a new range of products for them which avoided their competitors patents and at the same time created a portfolio of patents for the client. A lot of this work involved openly buying competitors products and reverse engineering them with particular reference to the competitor's patents so we could understand them and either circumvent of improve upon them. This is standard practice.

Bottom line is that a few years later they were invited ,by the same competitor that had sued them, to meet to discuss patent cross licencing - in other words sharing each others patents.

This mean that, apart from the odd litigious  bully, most big companies will not worry about an individual copying their electronics as long as you don't attempt to sell it .


For some unfathomable reason, logos seem to be a whole different ball game.

Cheers

Ian
 
exactly :) thanks for sharing info Ian.
if my work gets approved by client after the private event,
we go start talking to get license from the actual owner.
over the years only one of my license enquiry got rejected.
we never had to destroy anything,  and i still use it for my private use, but not work related...
This is standard practice in my industry too.

 
This is an interesting discussion.... Personally though, I think that clones with exact copies of logos don't belong in this forum, beyond the legality, it just seems against the spirit of this place...

 
ruffrecords said:
Just to take the fair use idea a stage further with regard to patents it is important to remember that the idea of patents is to grant commercial advantage for innovation. Infringing a patent is not unlawful (it is not a criminal offence). It is a civil tort or a wrong doing and the patent owner can sue in the civil court for damages.  If someone copies a patented idea but there is no commercial gain then the plaintiff is unlikely to sue because the court will want him to demonstrate the commercial advantage.
Yes the ugly reality is that patents are only a license to sue, not winning some lottery. There is some government help (enforcement) involved when container loads full of counterfeit products get imported into the country where the patent is valid, but managing that requires good inside information about the IP misuse.
In the consumer electronics arena, patents are bread and butter and are basically  a hand of cards that let you play at the  patent poker table. To give an example, many years ago I worked for a company that developed and sold a specific type of product. They developed an electronic version but were sued by a competitor for infringement of a patent and had to withdraw the product in one particular market. We were engaged to develop a new range of products for them which avoided their competitors patents and at the same time created a portfolio of patents for the client. A lot of this work involved openly buying competitors products and reverse engineering them with particular reference to the competitor's patents so we could understand them and either circumvent of improve upon them. This is standard practice.
Yes large companies like to accumulate a portfolio of patents, but primarily to defend their products. The strategy you mentioned of a latecomer to the technology accumulating a bunch of improvement patents was practiced widely by the Japanese to gain access to western technology they did not pioneer. An improvement patent does not give you right to use the basic technology, but enough valuable improvement patents could be horse-traded with the original technology owner in a cross-license arrangement.
Bottom line is that a few years later they were invited ,by the same competitor that had sued them, to meet to discuss patent cross licencing - in other words sharing each others patents.

This mean that, apart from the odd litigious  bully, most big companies will not worry about an individual copying their electronics as long as you don't attempt to sell it .
While I was working at Peavey I would often argue against pursuing and/or renewing patents in so many smaller foreign countries that make up such a small fraction of the market. The cost/benefit of having the right to sue in some distant land, over a small market share is minimal. As long as you gain patent protection in the major world markets, the large competitors will not develop a counterfeit product just to sell in a fraction of the world.

Companies also pursue large patent portfolios for bragging rights and maybe to scare competitors, while I have seen patents abused by small companies to crush even smaller companies. 
For some unfathomable reason, logos seem to be a whole different ball game.

Cheers

Ian
Copyright and trademark are indeed a different class of IP. There is no knowledge involved to share and advance the world's knowledge for the good of all. Trademarks instead are more a matter of accumulated good will associated with a brand, that others may dishonestly try to claim as their own for commercial advantage. 

JR

PS: For chuckles search the word "clone" here... pretty popular.
 
I am back.

Had a great time in Berlin. Among other things got to see Stasi HQ.  And guess what? A big dossier on Volker aka Mr Silent Arts  with extensive incriminating evidence that he had been reported to have cloned Bearringer in three occasions. 8)

However, it seems the person who has been advocating that he can re-produce a registered mark or a copyrighted material for "personal" use without the owner's permission has changed his mind after all. Anyhow. I do not mean to cause an argument but would like to reflect my professional experience of solid 25 years in this business in the UK.

Part of my business used to be in modelmaking and prototyping.  The other part was in products design and educational robotics.  Modelmaking complemented the product design side and there were very little that we did not do in-house. In the peak of my business during late 90s and beginning of 2000 I had 14 people in the payroll. After running both business for 25 years I closed down and retired from them. But I have been in design and manufacture for over 30 years. Now, I am concentrating on developing Total Audio Control.

In modelmaking we worked with a vast variety of clients on anything and everything. Architectural, engineering and marine models, prototypes  and /or masters of novelty products, soaps, vehicles, glasses, jewellery, CD players, telephones, props for TV commericals, and photo shoots, you name it. My client portfolio included companies from large architectural practices to advertising agencies, onto  corporate giants such as Coca Cola, Disney and onto major defence contractors such as Marconi, BAE Systems and Babcock. 

I also had various educational robotics products and had six registered trademarks. One was called EduBot and was also registered in the US as I had an oem customer there. My US lawyer was a great gentleman named Peter Kelman based in New Hampshire but I did all my trademark applications by myself (and my younger brother).  I also have a treatment of a film registered with the Library of Congress. So I am well converse with the process.  I spent a few thousand USD in trying to stop one company who was using Edubot but when I realised the number of windmills that was using it out there  I quit before turning into Don Quixote and did not bother renewing the registrations. (This is one of the points by the way.)

The information I/we handled during this period varied from simple copyrighted documents to commercially highly sensitive material. Contravening of some copyright law would be the last of one's worries  if some of the information was mishandled. It would not be considered a "fair personal use" if one of my employees fancied getting a blow up of  a photograph of F_a_s_lane and stuck it on his wall if it was found out. For those who do not know,  F_a_s.lane is the nuclear submarine base of UK. But copying a Disney or Coca Cola materials can equally be "life ruining".

Abbey's comment of " personal use is a moot" should not be taken lightly. There is no such thing as personal or fair use when it comes to copying /re-producing without permission.  Any lawyer will tell you that the term "personal" is not a blanket cover that fits all. I have said it and I'll say it again. The reason that we have this notion of personal or fair use  is because we do not generally experience  these legal actions as it is almost impossible to police every single person in the world. There are other reasons too, such as John's experience at Peavey. However, when your luck is up and  you find your match,  you'll realise how wrong you were. Defining your "personal use" in a court room will be devastatingly expensive.
 
Sahib, good to c u back :)
busy working on my VST remote for my RudeTube, and STA  ;)
 
Wow berringeer has stuff on Volker for cloning things.  Now that's Irony.  I should start to put belringer and other likewise logos on my diy from now on.
D-AOC by bearhunger
Gssl- by beer-ingester
D-u87 by behridingle
 
weiss said:
Is this international law? Or are there differences between countries?

Basic info; http://www.uspto.gov/trademark/laws-regulations/madrid-protocol

EC countries are well harmonised but there are greater practical differences in other countries.


kambo said:
Sahib, good to c u back :)
busy working on my VST remote for my RudeTube, and STA  ;)

Great stuff. Look forward to seeing it in action.  8)


Rocinante said:
Wow berringeer has stuff on Volker for cloning things.  Now that's Irony.  I should start to put belringer and other likewise logos on my diy from now on.
D-AOC by bearhunger
Gssl- by beer-ingester
D-u87 by behridingle

Watch your back.  ;D
 

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