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Company Sued, Loses For Not Using Patented Tech
bdcrazy writes "A man was recently awarded $1.5M in a jury trial after his hand was injured by a Ryobi table saw. The saw did not include the patented 'Saw Stop' technology that the plaintiff argued would have prevented all the problems." 60 similar cases have now been filed nationwide. TechDirt makes the argument that this jury decision is completely crazy: "If the government is going to require companies to use a patented technology, it seems that the only reasonable solution is to remove the patent on it and allow competition in the market place." If the decision stands, not only will the price of table saws go way up, but other hungry patent-holders will probably get a gleam in their eye.
By his own logic, seems he should also be liable for not buying a saw using the "Saw Stop" technology. I hope the jury sees that.
Do you have ESP?
sounds like a safety law suit jackpot and not a patent thing.
The case is not about patented software, it's about liability due to lack of modern safety technology. The fact that the currently accepted solution is patented is irrelevant, a FOSS alternative would be just as good.
Caveat Utilitor
In this case, the "requirement" is not coming from the government, but from a jury... The lawsuit was not brought by a government agency, but by a private individual...
Nice to see an opposition to government-required purchases, though... Health insurance, anyone?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
When we decide that certain items must include certain safety features, we pass a law specifying that. Did anyone ever sue an auto manufacturer who did not include airbags? I don't think so. If we want all saws to have this technology, we need to pass a law, otherwise, this is a horrible blurring of the separation of powers, amounting to legislation from the judiciary.
That being said, I don't think we should pass such a law. Power tool injuries are just too hilarious.
"Whad'ya do there buddy?"
"Oh, I chopped off all of my own fingers with a table saw."
COMEDY GOLD!
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
A jury verdict is not a government order. The jury, for whatever reason, found that the plaintiff had a good argument and they agreed with him. That doesn't immediately mean every saw manufacturer must now and forever include this patented technology. Certainly it doesn't men they must license it at whatever price the patent holder demands. It only means the plaintiff had a good lawyer, Ryobi had a not so good one, and the jury decided Ryobi could have made a safer product. The rest is just outrageous hyperbole.
Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now, and let us slay him... and we shall see what will become of his dreams.
...that should be the title. Take the airbag that deploys in a car to help prevent death or serious injury in an automobile accident. The airbag is patented.
http://www.patents.com/Airbag/US6866291/en-US/
If a car company manufactures an automobile, and there is a production error, and the airbags aren't installed, they will be liable for damages suffered by the owners of the car who suffer accidents. They sold a product without standard safety features. It has nothing to do with a patent.
Seems like Americans must always sue everyone even if they are simply stupid. Would you also sue a knife producing factory just because you did not know you could kill a human with it? Hello! It's your responsibility!
And denying you the right to use cheap tools if you aren't worried about safety. You could argue that no one would willingly subject themselves to such a risk for a few tens of dollars, but why not put the cheap unsafe saws out there with some safety warnings and see if anyone actually wants them? If no one buys them, you don't need a law anyway. If some people buy them, then there's a demand for them and they should be allowed to be sold.
There is no mandate to implement an emergency stop in a table saw. Maybe there should be, but there isn't. So it ain't the same.
Could you sue car-makers that did NOT introduce safety belts as soon as they became available?
Mind you, I am in two minds about this. A working safety feature exists, so why is it not implemented? This story has come up before, and while the guy who has the patent wants money I find it hard to sympathize with the poor power-tool companies who of course do NOT expect to be paid for the patents they own.
I think much like the seatbelt thing, this is a case of greed and not wanting devices to appear to be unsafe. Because maybe if you put on the box "can cut your finger off" people would just hire someone to do their DIY for them. Could ruin the entire industry.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
But this guy knowingly purchased a Ryobi, rather than a unit with SawStop, which was probably more expensive.
Are all car manufacturers that don't implement Mercedes new radar-guided emergency braking systems now liable when drivers rear end someone?
One thing this is not is legislation from the bench. For one thing it was a jury verdict, not a ruling from the judge. For another thing, there is existing law passed by the legislature, and regulations defined by the executive branch for requiring safety features on various devices (though not necessarily specific to saws).
Where I can see the jury coming from is that the Ryobi saw was measurably less safe than the existing state of the art for such saws. They aren't necessarily requiring Ryobi to buy a license, but they are saying "either license the tech or develop your own that provides a comparable level of safety."
However, I still disagree with the decision because there are plenty of safety features on saws, as well as standard practices to prevent accidents. The fact that most saws available still don't incorporate the patented tech means that while the state of the art is better, the generally accepted standard for safety is lower. Unless the legislature or the CPSC actively steps in to raise the safety standards to include flesh-detection technology, the generally accepted standard of safety should apply. This verdict sets the bar for "callous disregard for safety" way too low.
We are the 198 proof..
The StopSaw tech is not a "standard safety device". It is only used by StopSaw. Airbags in cars sold in the US are mandated by federal law. There's no law mandating StopSaw. Whether there should be such a mandate is open to debate, but should not be decided by 12 randomly picked jurors.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
If you RTFA, you would see that they're trying to license for 3% of the wholesale value of the saws. Hardly half.
The tool makers are balking because they feel the customers will be put off by the pricetag....$69 every time the saw brake engages, and $110 a blade (+ 3% increase in the wholesale cost of the saw). That might be true too...but hey, if you invented something, you'd want to make money off it too. And this is actually an invention, not the usual patent troll crap we see here on /.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
I can show you a picture of a person wrapped around a lathe
Link?
The problem is that there is a simple, preexisting and free way to use a table saw where you never risk getting limbs cut off. This method has been available to everyone since table saws were invented. Here it is: Do not put your limbs in the damn saw blade while it is spinning.
When driving a car there is no way for a driver to ensure that other drivers are not going to hit them and risk injury that could be mitigated by an airbag.
One thing this is not is legislation from the bench.
You're right - it's legislation from the jury box. So instead of having an experienced legal expert make the law, we've let a bunch of yoyos too stupid and/or unemployable to get out of jury duty do it. Wow, what an improvement.
Though this may be about patents, this is also about whom has the responsibility of safety. Its dangerous to put the responsibility of safety in technology and not on the operator. Technology will fail and people need to know how to react when that happens. In this case, sure Ryobi can get a licence to use the technology but it but the operator should just have been more careful.
"I just can't sit while people are saying nonsense in a meeting without saying it's nonsense" J Watson, Sci Am 288:(4)51
If you are using your saw correctly you will never be in a situation where a "normal" accident will cause you to loose a thumb.
Someone startles you!, You are distracted! Good thing you were using the saw correctly (not standing over the blade, using a push block for small pieces, etc) and didn't have your hand within inches of the blade. You might have gotten hurt if you were doing something wrong.
Someone pushes you into the blade! Quick, run out and sue the guy who made a sidewalk that a criminal decided to bash your head against.
Something weird happens, like the building collapses, a car drives through your garage, magical gremlins pick up the saw and throw it at you. Well, you just might loose a thumb. Oh well.
A roofing hammer is more dangerous under normal operation than a table saw. You actually have to place your finger at the point you are aiming for as you strike. You miss the nail or the nail fails, punches through, deflects the blow and you can smash a finger bad enough to require amputation. With a table saw, you never have to put yourself in harms way. It requires extraordinary external interference or doing something stupid to loose a thumb to a table saw.
Imagine buying a roofing hammer instead of a nail gun because it is cheaper. Then imagine roofing with a blindfold on and smashing your finger badly. If you had bought a nail gun instead, you could have avoided smashing your finger while blindfolded. Now imagine suing the maker of the hammer for this reason. This is analogous to what happened here.
Do not stand at either end of a table saw. Use a device to push with and stand out of the way of the object being cut.
I'm reminded of a Pratchett quote. "Safe? It's not meant to be safe. It's a sword." Really, when you purchase a cutting disc that spins around at several thousand RPM and sticks up out of a flat surface, you should expect to cut the odd minor appendage off occasionally and act accordingly.
[FUCK BETA]
Of course. But I wouldn't want to make money off it in this way, by effectively threatening to sue anyone who arranges saw parts in a certain way unless they pay me royalties. I prefer to get paid for doing work, rather than charging rent on work I did 20 years earlier.
Let me guess: you're not an American. Because I would LOVE to be paid bucketloads of money for something I invented 20 years ago . . . only I would REALLY prefer if it was life + 20 years, so the rest of my lazy family could benefit from that as well. Once the time comes up though, I'm sure someone will argue that life + 100 is more fair, so I'm not too worried. Because I really shouldn't have to do more work. I did enough 20 years ago!
The actual cost of the technology is not 3 to 8 percent. That is the amount SawStop will charge to LICENSE the technology. The article does not mention what it will cost to actually build and install the technology. But it's worth noting that SawStop can't seem to do it for less than $1600--in an admittedly very nice, upscale saw.
So assume a competitor cuts corners and can build a saw with SawStop technology for half of what SawStop can. That's still $800. Too much for a lot of us.
Based on that article we can't tell what it will cost. We know that repairing it costs $169, and that Ryobi and others felt that using it in their saws would be too expensive. I can't see how you can put a unit that takes $169 in repair parts in to a $100 saw.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.