Home Depot steals saw safety invention & has to pay

[Cubsfan]

Is there a picture of this thing? (I guess I could just check it out when I go to HD next time).

The thing that surprises me is that Home Depot went through all this trouble to save $1.6 million dollars. Guess it's costing them big now.

[LinuxRandal]

nothing is ever as simple as it seems.
I clearly don't know all the facts but it's possible that HD thought that the patent was very weak or incorrectly awarded. In that case the thing to do is challenge it and see if the owner is going to defend it AND it stands up in court.

Todays patent system for good or bad tends to reward the patent collectors. Companies patent everything (and they are the ones that can afford it at the cost of applying and maintaining the patent) and build portfolios. The patent office is overwhelmed with applications and backlogs dating a couple of years. They are tending to award patents now with minimal critique and then have the court system resolve the important ones that companies choose to challenge on merit.

Companies with large portfolios tend to cross license whole portfolios rather than fight. They'll exchange patent rights plus cash to the one with stronger patents, when they want access to a particular patent that they don't think they can beat in court for a reasonable effort.

So I'm not defending HD, I'm saying they might have had good reason to do what they did based on a gamble that the patent might not be held valid. You can never totally predict what a jury might rule. If HD's lawyers had portrayed the guard as just an obvious extension of a blade guard for a miter saw, or produed evidence of one similar to it predating the claimed invention and the jury bought it, they would have saved $4M - worth it if they thought they had a 50-50 chance. It's also testing the patent holder by challenging him to defend the patent, as to how strong a case he thinks he has. BY demanding $2000 apiece for a simple device, he may be bluffing, by making him go to court you are calling his raise (poker terms).

I thought this got brought up here in a sawstop related thread, but I couldn't find it.

I do remember some news about HD inspecting and measuring Powell's device. I found a little bit in this news story: http://www.bizjournals.com/southflor...0/daily30.html
"A key piece of evidence was a photo of a former Home Depot executive carrying tape measures, pencils and pads, and examining one of Powell’s prototypes that had been installed at a Georgia store."

It was brought up here before, but I have no idea where.

Home depot, should have just hired the guy, to flat out build them one, and had a licensing/right to copy deal in the contract. Maybe the guy wouldn't have gone for it, but I find this somewhat similar to when people hire people to right custom software for them. I know about it going both ways, depending on how the contract is written.

[tjr]

To change the conversation slightly, how much of top management's arrogance trickles down to store management and just the guys in the aisles? Anybody here work for HD?

[Kavoom]

"So I'm not defending HD, I'm saying they might have had good reason to do what they did based on a gamble that the patent might not be held valid."

From a totally objective kill or be killed standpoint, you are correct, but large corps also go one step further and think about things, like, hey this is a little guy and we are a huge corporation. We can wear him down, litigate till doomsday, making millions along the way since our litigation costs are built into our overhead and even if we lose, what we pay will likely be covered by our gain at worst case. Hey we don't have anything to lose here. You can objectify and rationalize anything if your assumptions are founded upon sand.

And, drum roll, I don't like living in a world run by actuarial tables and risk management calculations done by vicious nasty beasts that consider human beings to be barriers at worst to their making more dollar bills annoyances at least. Good reason? How do you define that? From what perspective? Where is any honor or sense of fairness instead of can I kill it (metaphorically) or maim it before it does me. What are my odds?

I had a bro in law who worked for Xerox 25 years ago. He was in charge of one of the teams and created the first patent for duplexing. The teams were given the challenge of independently figuring out how to do duplexing (double sided printing) and creating working prototypes. They then patented each and everyone one and parts of each and every one. They did this to defend against the competition and they still had to sue for years to protect. I'm OK with that. That's defense.

They could defend themselves, the regular guy who comes up with a new idea is simply prey. Even when the little guy wins, his victories are often pyhric. I win millions, oh wait, they are going to further litigate for another few years. And how many years did he fight, how much anxiety did he endure? How is his health, his family relations always living under that stress, thinking things are soon to be resolved only to suffer another often multi-year delay... And then he wins and probably dies the next day...

And note how the whole process is a go for the throat one. laissez-faire is one extreme that would eventually lead to one corporation (the one who killed the others) running the world, communism is another leading to total stagnation of human nature. We have seen the failure of Communism, thank goodness, but are we going to have to watch it happen at the other extreme? Finding the balance is difficult particularly when a world loses its perspective. On the spectrum, we are obviously too oriented of late toward the laissez-faire end of the continuum. Business ultimately serves humanity not itself at the expense of humans. Thnk about it? What happens when the game becomes the reality? Look around it may be happening.

Actually, imho this is all human nature personified in an activity that fills our time. I used to function in that world and am capable of excelling there. I made a choice not to as the mirror filled me with horror at what I was becoming one day. Building something is so satisfying and so far away from that. But no one had ever confuse me with prey and a few have. The key is to understand that we live in this place. Ultimately it is neither good nor bad nor right or wrong. It is. Understand it like that and Mr. Powell could have anticipated scenarios of what would happen and put in place means to protect himself better. So, some of it is in his court in my opinion.

From a macro standpoint relative to this particular example of the world we live in, I believe capitalism needs to be put back into its place. We need it, must have it, but it must serve our (big our) needs. So, like a mean dog you are **** glad to have in a vicious nasty world, you need to jerk its chain, HARD every so often and remind it you are alpha...

[cwithboat]

To change the conversation slightly, how much of top management's arrogance trickles down to store management and just the guys in the aisles? Anybody here work for HD?

I have noticed a great deal of difference in attitude and service from HD store to HD store. Some OK , some terrible.

[LCHIEN]

"So I'm not defending HD, I'm saying they might have had good reason to do what they did based on a gamble that the patent might not be held valid."

...

Understand it like that and Mr. Powell could have anticipated scenarios of what would happen and put in place means to protect himself better. So, some of it is in his court in my opinion.

From a macro standpoint relative to this particular example of the world we live in, I believe capitalism needs to be put back into its place. We need it, must have it, but it must serve our (big our) needs. So, like a mean dog you are **** glad to have in a vicious nasty world, you need to jerk its chain, HARD every so often and remind it you are alpha...

the patent system has evolved into a thing that only patent lawyers could love... ( you can quote me on that).

[woodturner]

What's to appeal?

The purpose of a patent is to encourage production and use of the invention while protecting the rights of the inventor. Thus there is a requirement to produce the product or license it to others under "reasonable" terms.

My guess is that HD would argue that the terms of the agreement offered (if any) were not "reasonable". They may also seek to have the patent invalidated.

The patent office is not screening patents like they once did. The current approach seems to be to approve nearly everything and let the legal system sort out the patents that aren't valid or reflect prior work.