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a) Have the air aim downwards to push the water down off your hands

b) Move your hands into position from the side, rather than above

Sounds like you're describing the Dyson Airblade V

http://www.dyson.co.uk/hand-dr...

What evidence is there that patents have brought products to market that otherwise would never have been made?

Well, in the UK, the rather famous example is Dyson vacuum cleaners. It's somewhat difficult for those of us who dislike patents to make the argument against in this case.

Yes, apple got lucky with their ipods, iphones & ipads. Lucky, that is all. Some maybe call it smart, visionairy, or some stupid shit like that, but it was lucky. They made products that was easy to use, looked nice, and people loved it.

Have you ever noticed that people (or companies) who design good looking products that work well and are easy to use are consistently a LOT more lucky than their competitors?

BTW, is "Vision-airy" a clever reference to the Dyson Airblade or the Air Multiplier perhaps? I was just wondering as that's another splendid example of a company that got lucky but also co-incidentally designed products that are beautiful, functional and technically better than the competition and found a solid user base despite being more expensive...

~Pev

lol, no i didn't do that on purpose, over even know about them, but that is pretty funny. =)

It was just a stupid spelling mistake on my part.

Yes, apple got lucky with their ipods, iphones & ipads. Lucky, that is all. Some maybe call it smart, visionairy, or some stupid shit like that, but it was lucky. They made products that was easy to use, looked nice, and people loved it.

Have you ever noticed that people (or companies) who design good looking products that work well and are easy to use are consistently a LOT more lucky than their competitors?

BTW, is "Vision-airy" a clever reference to the Dyson Airblade or the Air Multiplier perhaps? I was just wondering as that's another splendid example of a company that got lucky but also co-incidentally designed products that are beautiful, functional and technically better than the competition and found a solid user base despite being more expensive...

~Pev

The vacuum cleaner people made a nice game too, hopefully they'll add some more levels for it someday: Telescope Game

There's also The Ball Game.

The vacuum cleaner people made a nice game too, hopefully they'll add some more levels for it someday: Telescope Game

There's also The Ball Game.

The mystery is how long it will take Dyson to sue them.

(No, not Freeman Dyson, James Dyson )

When the primary workforce moves to Inda, China, South Korea, or somewhere else, middle management will move with it. What do you think, that the plant that put your last car together in Mexico left its middle management in Detroit?

This is precisely what UK appliance firm Dyson has done: the manufacturing is done in Malaysia, the design and management is still in England. James Dyson recently described his reasoning when he gave the annual Richard Dimbleby Lecture for the BBC: the full text of his lecture is here, and makes for interesting reading, not just for Euro-peons like moi...

Reading about this wonderful "patented tornado" which recirculates air, sounds like the Dyson vacuum cleaner, which uses the same technique to capture dust particles and hold them in the machine without having to use a filter-bag to catch them.

http://www.dyson.co.uk/nav/inpageframe.asp?id=DYSO N/HIST/DUALCYC

I *really* don't understand patents in the US...

1. Patent - protects an idea, demonstrated for a specific physical implementation exists eg a centrifuge based vacuum cleaner (the Dyson Cleaner)
2. Copyright - protects a specific expression or recording, EG the likeness of Micky Mouse, the OS Microsoft Windows XP, the Linux Kernel

Dyson have about 4.2 Billion patents for their cyclonic vacuum cleaners. This slowed development of competing products - but it couldn't stop them because, quite simply, you can't patent physics.

All it takes is for a research lab to exploit the same physical effect in a slightly different form, unless the patent is rediculously generalised - i.e. "The use of cyclonic sucky effect in cleaning products" - which of course they aren't (on the whole).

Electrolux, Hoover, etc... all just went out and bought a hundred Dysons, tore them apart, and put them back together swapping as many components as they could without breaking the vaccuum. Easy! Oops - no - sorry - they carried out parallel novel research!! Silly me!

Just stumbled across an article in an on-line paper (sorry, Dutch only) that puts forward two really ridiculous arguments:

• Developpers would have to pay for using common words(?) and constructions in software for use in for example vacuum cleaners and laundry machines
  WAKE UP! A patent cannot keep you from using a word. This sounds more like a trademark isssue and trademark protection has been there for already a long time.
  Furthermore, there already are patents for constructions in vacuum cleaners and laundry machines, albeit not on the software that's being used. Everything on a vacuum cleaner and a laundry machine is patentable, just as long as it's new and it provides a solution to a technical problem (well, at least in the civilised world (Europe, China and Japan)) and that prevent other people from using such simple constructions as well. Example? One word: Dyson. And there are no software patents involved here.
  Please bear in mind that something obvious or known is not patentable and that procedures to prevent this kind of patents are in Europe far better than in US and a lot cheaper as well.
  When you use a simple 8051 microcontroller in you laundry machine now with a simple algorithm, extensive European software patent legislation cannot stop you using it.
• But what struck me most is the following argument by nobody less than Richard Stallman. He should have known better. Quote: (translated from Dutch) "Imagine the EU would have made it possible to patent combinations of tones; in that case, only seldom a music piece could be written".
  Well, you can already protect combintation of tones. Or to be more precise: combintations of tones are protected by definition, just like combintations of computer code. It's called copyright and lasts usually about 100 years instead on the mere 20 years of patent protection. Furthermore, this kind of protection is already being used as a tool for spreading free software under the GPL, of which the same Mr. Stallman is a well-known supporter.

Also keep in mind that the European Patent Office is not bound by decisions of the EU. It is independent. And has quite a good policy to keep the real business patents from being granted.
And software patents: I write applications for them every day. Well, in the broadest sense, as everything you build with transistors can be build with software. When you patent the method performed by the transistor - resistor - capacitor circuit, the software performing the same function is protected as well. Duh...

On last remark before you flame me to my toes:
Yes, I know the absence of patent protection is a good way to help a booming technology. Two major companies of The Netherlands were able to compete with companies from other countries in the early days of the 1900's because The Netherlands were lacking patent protection. So it might help here, but let's keep the discussion and arguments sane.

Whatever happened to the Dyson DC06? That was the first robot vacuum I've seen presented and it seemed to have the most intelligence. They don't seem to have sold very many though. Maybe the price put people off.

Sorry about that, I had local problems and didnt test the link in the preview

Dysons Robot Vacuum cleaner

Where as these things always suck. Large canister, hose attachment, high efficiency, no bags and great industrial design.

I've got the standard cylinder version but as soon as the robot verion is released in full I'm getting one.

It sounds a bit like James Dyson's vacuum cleaner.
http://www.dyson.co.uk/.

One shudders to think what teenage boys might get up to with it ;o)

OK, Here I go again, tilting at /. windmills, but it needs to be said again: PATENTS ARE GOOD, and they **PROTECT** the ability of individual inventors to pursue real innovation. Good patents in no way inhibit the pace of innovation, but rather they are the strongest protection possible to allow the inventor to be able to bring his invention succesfully to market so you and I can buy it.

Here's what I had to say about it in a letter to LWN a while back:

http://lwn.net/2000/0420/backpage.phtml#backpage

And perhaps more importantly, here's what James Dyson has to say, which is essentially the same thing: (Dyson is the famous inventor of the phenominally successful and innovative Dyson vacuum cleaners that have vacuumed up the competition virtually everywhere but the US, where they are just now becoming available.) http://www.dyson.co.uk/invent/default.asp

I know too many of you have fallen for the FSF's party line of patent demonization, but eliminating Patents would only ensure that the likes of Microsoft would roll completely unopposed over any potential competition.

...And I tried to submit a story about it at the time. I guess jonerik has more luck than me.

My origonal submission, I think it is still relevant:

The UK Patent Office celibates it's 150 year anniversary this week.

A BBC Radio news show has decided to commemorate this by holding a poll of the public's favourite, and least favourite inventions of the last 150 years. The poll closes on Monday 21 October, so vote now.

In the radio item on the subject, the inventor James Dyson (of vacuum cleaner fame) was interviewed (text, audio), and gave his favourite and least favourite inventions. There was also an interview of the patent office's director of copyright

It is interesting to note that James Dyson chose to highlight as his favourite invention the example of Rubber vulcanisation where (in his opinion) the patent system failed because the inventor Charles Goodyear was refused a patent and died in poverty despite the value of his invention.

Check it out If you are looking for the grooviest vacuum cleaners out there, get a Dyson. Expensive, but worth it.

It says :

The next step is an automatic vacuum cleaner, Bright said.

But the thing is, (and i made a submission to slashdot about a year ago) dyson (a uk brilliant inventor and industrialist) created and already sells a robotic vacuum cleaner..

see here for details Dyson