True Kirksite is not sold in America anymore. The patent is held by
a company in the UK, who I visited with via e-mail. This variant
[snip] works just like Kirksite.
Is it just me or is this slightly unethical to steer business away
from the patent holder? Isn’t it mostly preferable for us to reward
the original patent-holder rather than promote a copyist? I believe
that people who design and develop materials and methods are just
like people who design and develop jewelry products, and so to promote
copyists in either area seems wrong. I’d hate it if someone said my
work is “great stuff but go buy it from this other guy who makes
copies that are similar”. Is it fair to copy from an engineer when
it’s not so fair to copy from a jeweler?
So John, please also let us know about that UK company.
Glad to Brian;
The representative of the company who holds the patent in the UK is
the one who told me that it would be prohibitive to ship me the
Kirksite because of weight, along with I believe it was import duties?
He went on to say that none of his companies product “Kirksite” was
sold in the US. He further advised that there were variants of
Kirksite that would do the same job manufactured and sold in the US.
Further that some of the biggest buyers here were Boeing Aviation and
the automobile industry, so he felt sure that I could find my need met
here in the US. I have a copy of the e-mail letter with his company
name along with his name and their e-mail address if
anyone should need or want to see it. Kindest regards, John Barton, Images By JJ
Insufficient data. Patents are country specific and patenters must
chose what countries they want their limited monopoly in by paying the
costs to get the patent in those countries. If no US patent is held
then no law (or ethics?) is broken whether by duplicating or modifying
in the US a patent teaching from the UK. In exchange for their limited
monopoly patent holders, via their patent, explicitly teach the world
(“public”) in the contents of their patent document with the goal
being that OTHERS will learn from those teachings and further them on
their own. Everybody wins (in theory, in general, and in the long
run).
Copyright, however, is (due to treaty, not registration) truly
international–but it is still not up to “the government” or
“somebody else” to deal with the ethically challenged who do copy–it
is mandated by law that the infringed take the lions share of the
responsibility for taking (legal) action. Whining by business people
(e.g., jewelers, jewelry designers) is not seen as a sound business
practice anywhere I’m aware of.
James E. White Inventor, Marketer, and Author of “Will It Sell? How to
Determine If Your Invention Is Profitably Marketable (Before Wasting
Money on a Patent)” www.willitsell.com