On Wed, 6 Sep 2000, Chuong Nguyen wrote:
> Wow, why don't you guys manufacture those 4 bars offered in that dakota
> x-brace kit? It should be faily easy to make and drill holes for. I don't
> see how anyone in their right of mind would pay 259 bucks (well, 220 bucks
> if 15 people join the GB) for 4 bars and some bolts. hehe.. Maybe I need
> to get into this manufacturing business. Seems rather profitable.
>
> "sorry sir, we can only mark these items up 10,000%, no more, no less. hehe
> -Deter
Heh; aren't patents great? :-P
Usually for things like this, the owner has a patent, and they're the
only ones allowed to produce them for the next 20 years. Of course,
there's nothing stopping you from fabbing up your own bars for yourself,
but most people are either unwilling or unable to do so. Anyone who
tries to manufacture them will find themselves facing a costly lawsuit.
I come across products like this all the time where I think to myself
"I'd love to make something like that and sell it for half the price to
DMLers" but the patents and the lawyers think otherwise. :-( The only
way to get around it is to significantly improve the original design
or make something that does a similar thing in a different way.
Unfortunately, most patents are worded rather vaugely for this very
reason, and even if you are in the right, a costly lawsuit usually
isn't worth the hassle.
-Jon-
.---- Jon Steiger ----- jon@dakota-truck.net or jon@twistedbits.net ------.
| Affiliations: AOPA, DoD, EAA, NMA, NRA, SPA, USUA; Rec & UL Pilot - SEL |
| '92 Ram 150 4x4 V8, '96 Dakota V8, '96 Intruder 1400, '96 FireFly 447 |
`------------------------------ http://www.cs.fredonia.edu/~stei0302/ ----'
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Jun 20 2003 - 11:54:26 EDT