Informative "patent wars" article affecting eucs

[John Eucist]

http://www.greyb.com/first-patent-on-hoverboard-can-get-invalidated/

 

[Jag_Rip]

Thx for the link: Chen is a very good inventor, however IMHO he should concentrate on keeping his products ahead of the competition rather than blowing the money on stopping copycats. If his time-to-market would be faster, better quality and competitive price, the chinese knockoffs wouldnt even have the chance to shake up the market.
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[John Eucist]

Unfortunately, it seems that if and when the euc market becomes bigger, Ninebot (Segway) will also sue and stifle competition of all the other euc brands like King Song, Gotway, Inmotion, IPS, or whoever.

[DS]

I'd say Mr. Chen has the biggest contribution as the first one to  mass produce and sells the EUC's.

Here is his patent: http://www.google.com/patents/US20110220427

But what about this one which dates back in 70's: http://www.google.com/patents/US4109741

Looks like Inventist are not the first one.

Wow, motorized unicycle back in 1978! I remember that year what I was driving...I was pretty good in DIY and riding the similar one wooden with simple bearings (no rubber) cart

 

 

[John Eucist]

4 minutes ago, DS said:

I'd say Mr. Chen has the biggest contribution as the first one to  mass produce and sells the EUC's.

Here is his patent: http://www.google.com/patents/US20110220427

But what about this one which dates back in 70's: http://www.google.com/patents/US4109741

Looks like Inventist are not the first one.

 

And this:

https://www.google.com/patents/US20090266629

But no doubt that Shane's Solowheel was the first one that was actually mass produced for consumers.

[DS]

Honestly, I do not understand the patent system.

Here, even from the last year, they continue to "invent" the EUC.

https://www.google.com/patents/WO2015118308A1?cl=en

[steve454]

Me neither, It's a long description of a device that has so many words that you could change the wording and get a different patent number.

[HEC]

Chmm - looking at Shane Chen's patent from 2011 I see two interesting points there:

1. Couple of drawings of almost Xtreme wheel (pictures 3 + 5) and one looking like Orb wheel (picture 4)

2. Original design seems to have even pedals suspension (elements 180 + 181 on second drawing)!

[Jag_Rip]

@DS that looks like a more deadly 4-wheeled hoverboard glad you survived.

[Rehab1]

This is extremely interesting and I am certain that patent attorneys will continue making huge sums of money as these lawsuits grow.

I have seen many small time inventors with patents in the US only to have their ideas reproduced in other countries. My friend produced a specialized  ability cane to assist the elderly with mobility. He contracted with a firm in another country to produce the cane. Big Mistake! His idea was copied with one small cosmetic change and whala, the introduction of the HurryCane. https://www.hurrycane.com/?gclid=CL2M08fS2c0CFQIKaQodUEgNbw&AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1

There was no possible way he could file an international lawsuit due to the cost! His prototype sits on a shelf.

 

 

[lizardmech]

37 minutes ago, DS said:

Honestly, I do not understand the patent system.

Here, even from the last year, they continue to "invent" the EUC.

Western patent system has become nothing more than a complete scam. Patents aren't examined properly any more, there's no requirement to be able to build a prototype of the item. As long as you avoid things like cold fusion or anti gravity they will pass it. They also allow existing patents to be combined and patented as again. One of Apples favourite tricks is to take 1980s computer patents and reuse them for mobile devices, despite just being small computers they pass them as long as they add "for mobile" or "for tablet"

Now imagine you have gotten up to this stage, lets say the patent was an EUC with a missile launcher, despite inventing neither the EUC or missile and being totally unable to even buy a missile your patent probably still passed. So you would think by this stage you now have a monopoly on on the absurd EUC with a rocket launcher, well nope the patent is virtually worthless. Suddenly while you were trying to work out how to build this EUC you notice a bigger company with more resources saw your patent and used it to develop an EUC with a missile launcher of their own before you even finish, it should be as simple as suing them? Well no, as they had slightly more resources and patent experience they had their patent lawyers file many vague defensive patents, vague things about an electrical system linking a missile launcher to an EUC and other things such as serial data connections and every electronic system you can think of.

Now if you try to enforce your original patent, they will counter sue you over these vague defensive patents they filed and they will file them in another location, even worse usually in some rural court with a crooked judge that always rules in favor of patent complaints. In the USA it's even worse, both the patent suits will be decided by jury with no technical knowledge. This means even if you had extremely good patents if your opponent has better lawyers there's a good chance you will lose both your complaint and fail to defend their counter suit. For small to medium companies once this happens they are finished and they go under from the legal costs of multiple lawsuits.

For larger corporations they will appeal and eventually reach some settlement after another 4 or 5 years of lawsuits. Once a patent has been enforced by a court it becomes much more valuable, if you infringe on it there's almost no chance of defending and it's harder to drag it out for 5+ years.

Basically if you have a patent but are a small to medium business and actually sell products you cannot enforce your patent most of the time. Larger competitors can shut you down before you can win your case. The exception to this is patent trolling, where you create a company that has no business beyond suing people over patents, because you do nothing they have nothing to file a counter suit against. Many lawyers run these companies and do all the legal work themselves to reduce costs, most companies settle for a small payment and winning the occasional case once every 5 or 10 years still pays millions of dollars.

This is a good video to learn about the US patent system.

  

[Rehab1]

Toyota and Sony also began development on self balancing technology scooters and in 2008 the Winglet was born. Not sure what happened after that. They certainly have deep pockets to withstand lawsuits.

 

[DS]

1 hour ago, lizardmech said:

Western patent system has become nothing more than a complete scam. Patents aren't examined properly any more...

Thank you @lizardmech for this very informative and elaborated post.

Now, I got the idea

[electric_vehicle_lover]

Seems that Inventist also sued "Shenzhen Kebe Technology" which I am pretty sure is GotWay.

[John Eucist]

2 hours ago, electric_vehicle_lover said:

Seems that Inventist also sued "Shenzhen Kebe Technology" which I am pretty sure is GotWay.

Gotway is "kebye" not "kebe" but it's possible they used a variation.  Also, Gotway was originally based in Guangzhou but the holding company could be Shenzhen based, dunno.  @Jane Mo might know though.

[Jane Mo]

On 2016/7/5 at 5:14 PM, John Eucist said:

Gotway is "kebye" not "kebe" but it's possible they used a variation.  Also, Gotway was originally based in Guangzhou but the holding company could be Shenzhen based, dunno.  @Jane Mo might know though.

how about janick?

[John Eucist]

1 minute ago, Jane Mo said:

how about janick?

Don't think so.