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Fluke Donates Multimeters To SparkFun As Goodwill Gesture
Actually, I do RTFA writes "We recently heard about the confiscation of a delivery of multimeters to SparkFun for infringing on Fluke's trademark. One common thread in the discussions was the theme that Fluke should have let that shipment through as a goodwill gesture to SparkFun and the Maker community. Well, Fluke did one better. They announced they were sending more than $30k worth of official multimeters to SparkFun for them to do whatever they want with. SparkFun is most likely going to give them away. A great example of win-win-win?"
Fluke moves from villain to hero.
$30K is cheap for good PR.
Except for the huge loss and waste of those sparkfun meters, which last I checked were still being destroyed.
Your
That original $30,000 shipment was apparently 2,000 multimeters. I'm guessing that $30,000 "worth" of Fluke meters, while a nice gift, will constitute a lot fewer units, meaning fewer makers will end up getting their hands on a meter.
Whenever Urza is still fictional.
If you believe fluke's statement on the matter (personally I do), they didn't initiate this whole mess.
As the article notes, SparkFun isn't about to try to resell these guys, so SparkFun is still out their entire shipment. What would have been a lot more meaningful of Fluke to do would be to cancel the trademark. That being said, I love Fluke multimeters. Five years of physics labs really made me believe their unofficial motto, "If it works, it's a Fluke."
Why should they cancel their trademark? In what world is that even remotely the right thing to do here?
The slashdot community is hilarious sometimes.
Used to be that you trademarked your logo and your model-name. But trademarking your colors, shapes, etc. is ridiculous. How is this different from Toyota AND Honda selling yellow cars? If it looks like a Fluke, and I pick it up and see SparkFun on it, I think, "Heh, they copied Fluke's design". It's not disingenuous. They're selling an inferior product for a much smaller price to people who don't need a $3000 Fluke meter to check their robot's power relay. They're not labeling it or branding it as a Fluke. How does this harm Fluke's IP?
Fluke did a good gesture and I applaud them. What happens to the 2000 multimeters that are held up ? if they get destroyed ... its not a win in my book.
The cheep meters have more than a passing resemblance to Fluke ones, to the point that someone could actually pick one up and expect Fluke quality and safety, in the right environment.
The slashdot community is hilarious sometimes.
Here's the way it works around here:
If I produce software, I want to get paid for it. If someone else produces software, I'll steal it.
When I make a product, no one else can make anything like it. When someone else makes a product like someone else, they're free to rip off the design because you can't copyright or trademark that shit.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Trademarking a color combination and JUST that it's BS.
It is bullshit to say this is only about the color combination. The knockoff ones look exactly like Fluke devices, and it is hardly accidental. Your argument makes it seem that some good faith is involved on the part of the manufacturer of the fake Fluke meters, and that the violation is trivial, but that is simply not the case.
Sometimes I can't tell if these posts or trolls or not. Why should anyone develop any product if someone else can just clone it and sell it cheaper? While I think copyright laws as they are, are completely nuts, there has to be something to protect against straight up physical counterfeiting.
I'm looking at a digital multimeter from Radio Shack that I bought about 5 years ago when they closed a store near me. It sure looks like the same shade of yellow...
I am Homer of Borg, resistance is - Ooo Donuts!
They didn't.. insofar as Fluke reps standing at ports waiting for a multimeter to pass by their eyes and go "Whoa, Nelly!" - or even getting a call in advance telling them that a shipment of DMMs was found that may or may not infringe.
They did... insofar as Fluke having registered for the trade dress in the first place.
They didn't... insofar as cheap knockoffs trying to copy Fluke's looks - regardless of intent there, Fluke rather they didn't - and since asking nicely tends not to work, trade dress it is.
A lot of people seem to have missed the issue in the original story anyway (even if it may have come across as an attack against Fluke based on e.g. the title).
SparkFun doesn't really mind Fluke's trade dress (other than believing it to be overly broad - they themselves deem the old SFE DMM's border to be more of an orange..). What they mind is the inflexibility of the system once you're confronted with such an issue. For example, SFE didn't appear to have any way to tell CBP that they believed the borders to be orange and thus not even run afoul of the trade dress to begin with and enter e.g. arbitration with either the CBP or with Fluke. There's also the matter of how the product gets destroyed, with only a quoted price per hour - but no indication of how long it would take. Responsible destruction would take a very long time, a shredder should take less than 30 minutes; either could easily be possible for the price cited. Then there's the whole option of 'either ship them away or have them destroyed' in the first place; No "you can store them here and adjust the product so it no longer infringes", and even if you could adjust them, the period in which you have to make that decision is rather short.
While it's easy enough to say that SFE should have done better in figuring out this could occur beforehand, that doesn't help once the issue does arise.
Some will shrug that off and say "well I guess if you have to learn the hard way...", others will contemplate the bureaucracy.
Note that this is pretty much a separate issue from whether or not the color combo should be something that you can get a trade mark/dress on in the first place, which most people focused on (next to the "if you copy a popular brand, you oughtta know this can happen" discussion).
So, SparkFun, a company in the business of selling multimeters, is now being gifted a large number of its competitors superior product. How is this a good thing? They've still lost a ton of money on their own shipment, and can't even give away the Fluke meters without likely reducing the demand for their own product, and probably making their product look bad in comparison as well. Maybe they could sell them to try to recoup some of their losses, but that risks damaging their public image.
Unless they can manage some seriously good PR spin, this looks to me kind of like SparkFun is receiving a very polite and well-spoken slap in the face by Fluke.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
To be clear, I mean specifically the "multimeter with a yellow border = Fluke" trademark. As plenty of people in comments to the previous article noted, yellow is the natural color for a safety device.
A great move in a difficult situation.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
In other words, a fluke.
destruction is almost always a waste of resources. But Sparkfun is doing ok here. They have $30,000 worth of meters at retail, but they did not pay $30,000 for them. They probably paid $9000. They could sell the Flukes for at least $20,000, or sell some of them for the $9000 and donate the rest.
The cheapo meters should be sent to another country for donation though.
Dear Fluke,
I use your multimeters and love them. Please allow SparkFun to have a one-time, royalty-free license to use your trademark for this batch of multimeters.
No one is going to confuse these multimeters with those of Fluke. And it will be a good-will gesture that those of us in the EE community would appreciate.
byteherder
Is that $30K cost of production, wholesale, or retail?
This last shipment was apparently $5 a multimeter, but they were probably going to sell them at over $40 a pop (random guess).
If these replacements are measured in retail price, it probably only cost the company a few hundred to manufacture them.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
No, but they could, and perhaps (debatable) should retroactively license their trademark for this one shipment. Retroactive, because an agreement entered into today won't apply to prior shipments, otherwise, and limited to just this shipment, so SparkFun can't keep using the trademark. That would make Fluke look AWESOME, here, while letting SparkFun carry on without a huge loss. Hell, Fluke could even charge something along the lines of 1/3 of the cost of the shipment and still come out heroes.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
And of course, it may be 30k in lost revenue, but their actual cost per unit, including shipping, was probably closer to $5. I'd be surprised if they actually lost more than 10k on this.
You forgot the part where it is appropriate to go to a grocery store, determine for yourself how much the goods on the shelves should cost, and leave that dollar amount on the shelf in lieu of paying what the grocer is asking.
But those bastards better not abuse the licensing terms on my software.
There was never a chance of giving away the meters to an NPO, trade school, or public school. The hardware would inevitably be as suspect as the look-alike case. I am not convinced that there is a place for the $15 multimeter even in the makerbot movement.
Any shorthand description of Fluke and its product lines will read like corporate PR. but that can't be helped.
Fluke, a subsidiary of Danaher (maker of Craftsman tools), makes handheld electronic test tools used by electricians, HVAC technicians, and engineers to install, maintain, and service electrical and electronic equipment. Its multimeters, oscilloscopes, and other devices measure current, voltage resistance, frequency, pressure, temperature, and air quality. It also makes calibrators and calibration software, waveform generators, and power harmonics meters. Its Fluke Biomedical unit makes patient simulators, diagnostic imaging, and radiation safety products, among others.
Fluke Corporation Company Profile
The cheapest Fluke multimeter I could find online sells for about $150 and is CAT III rated for 600 volts.
This category refers to measurements on hard-wired equipment in fixed installations, distribution boards, and circuit breakers. Other examples are wiring, including cables, bus bars, junction boxes, switches, socket outlets in the fixed installation, and stationary motors with permanent connections to fixed installations.
What are Measurement Categories (CAT I, CAT II, etc...)?
Because who cares about the environment, right?
Despite the word "Sparkfun" stamped on the front, not "Fluke"? Is the right environment a dark room with no lights? You know, there are countless other products that look like other products. The way you deal with that is by not being a moron. Like a cop wouldn't store his replica 1911 next to his real 1911. If you're a serious electrician, and have a working procedure that allows you to have both a cheapo and quality multimeter on hand, but no procedure to validate that you have grabbed the right one, you are stupid. I'm not saying you deserve to get fried, but I'm also not not saying it
Fluke could have just as easily done nothing but they see the sparkfun community for what it is. A group of people who are technical hobbyists, a sizable number of which are probably in purchasing positions in their professional lives... I have both fluke's a Simpson, and some cheapy meters. I have cheapies in the toolboxes of my trucks where all I care about is "is this wire live" or "is there some continuity between here and ground"... I don't care about accuracy. I use my Fluke's when I want accuracy. At work we use Fluke's because they get sent out for calibration; not because they need it, but because lab policy dictates that it is so.
Maybe a few high end benchtop ones, but all their handheld DMMs (which is what this whole issue is about) are well under the $3K level. You can buy an entry-level Fluke DMM for less than $150 last I checked. Most of the mainstream models are $300-$400.
And if you actually make your living using instruments like these, they are worth every penny you pay. Even if just for the security that the thing isn't going to blow up in your face when testing mains power...
Remember "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"? Help make it a reality again! http://soylentnews.org
The slashdot community is hilarious sometimes.
Here's the way it works around here:
If I produce anything, I demand to get paid for it. If someone else produces anything, I'll insist that it's my right to steal it.
Your original statement was a bit to specific, IMO.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
The environmental, material, and human costs that went into making and then destroying 2000 of these things matters too. What a waste!
Except that Fluke's "trademark" is actually a trade dress and it's not for the color yellow it's for the colors yellow and dark grey applied in a specific pattern.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
Road cones are orange. Fire extinguishers are red. Safety vests are fluorescent orange. Ground wires are green/yellow...
Next week, order some Chinese cars that look suspiciously like Bugatti Veyrons.
good point, See Dewalt... they have a trademark on their design as well which also includes a Yellow color scheme.
(from http://www.dewalt.com/) The following are trademarks for one or more DEWALT Power Tools and Accessories: The yellow and black color scheme; the "D"-shaped air intake grill; the array of pyramids on the handgrip; the kit box configuration; and the array of lozenge-shaped humps on the surface of the tool.
Fluke did their job well. Now it's up to Sparkfun.
Whoever gets those will have the experience of using a good multimeter. I have a Fluke 21 on my desk right now. It's over 20 years old. Autoranges over inputs from 1mV to 1KV. Auto power off. Runs for years on a 9V battery. Test leads have good strain reliefs and don't wear out in normal use. Finger guards on the probes so you don't slip into a live circuit. Ohms measurement still calibrated properly; goes to 0.00 if you hold the probes together tightly.
It's out of production, but its replacement, the Fluke 77-IV, sells for about $260. If you want an original Fluke 21, they're for sale for $100 on eBay. These things last for decades.
I think a lot of the worst hypocrisies come from different people speaking up at different times. You'll rarely catch one individual being quite so blatant about it.
That said, there are also a lot of individuals who write software and grumble that their bosses don't give it away, not realizing that if they did, they'd be out of a job. Many are counting on the fact that their software is specialized, such that nobody else would particularly want it, and can smugly believe their jobs to be safe while the people who write software with wide appeal (games, infrastructure) would have the same safety.
I always figured that the yellow multimeter was so that you could find it easily. People who use multimeters often use them in places that are dark, cramped, or dirty. Making the case bright yellow just keeps you from misplacing an expensive piece of portable test equipment.
The point of trademarks is to prevent consumer confusion so that a company can't trick you into buying their product instead of the one you intended to buy. But in a world of thousands of brands and in particular this type of product which is mostly distinguished by make and model, color should not qualify as a source of consumer confusion as long as the product features a clearly distinct make and model.
Why should anyone invest in open-source if someone else can just clone it and sell it cheaper ? The answer less a physical one than a perceived one. When people buy Channel 5 perfume, or a Dior bag, they do not buy a perfume or a bag, they buy a marketing image. I knew someone who tried to sell Channel 5 copy, the whole scheme ended up in an utter failure, as people would prefer to buy the original image rather than the copy.
All in all, I strongly believe that the copy market is not not detrimental to the copied brand. The targeted market have very few overlap, and the show-off implied by the piracy might actually induce more sell for the original product. Same goes with music or movie. I can do without it, but piracy made me learn about a lot of artist I else would not have cared about.
Since that time when you work as an electrician and put the meter's probes on high voltage terminals to check they are live or not. Just a completely wild guess right out of the blue...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multimeter#Safety
Fluke would possibly take on some sort of legal liability (or at the least, popular association) by associating in any way with the infringing shipment. Since the shipment is made up of imports of questionable (and probably poor) quality, this would be a dangerous move from a liability, trade dress, marketing, and general safety perspective.
The instant someone sticks the probes in a wall socket and finds out that the meter wasn't really designed to handle anywhere close to the 600V it says, they'd be in a world of trouble. Would you want to publicly endorse cheap Chinese knock-offs of your quality product that's often used in dangerous environments?
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
What would have been a lot more meaningful of Fluke to do would be to cancel the trademark.
I wonder if it should have been granted in the first place. Yellow rubber meter holders existed far before 2000 when this color trademark was granted. Which means that Fluke may have not been entitled to it in the first place. Maybe the fine legal minds on Slashdot can help explain it to me.
I understand Fluke's desperation at wanting to stop low cost meters from undercutting their business, but let's face it, China has been undercutting everyone's business. I don't see what makes them so special to avoid it other than making better products, certainly not through a yellow rubber holder that's been used since nearly the beginning of digital meters.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
In computing, "Win" has an unfortunate association with "loss", so the phrase "win-win" is ruined. This is why I always say "lin-lin" when referring to mutually profitable outcomes. Although in this case, depending on your measurements, it might also be lin-log or log-log (because everyone loves the log).
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
But Average Joe, 99% of time, does not need a high-end piece of equipment. Last time I used a multimeter, it was to check my car battery voltage after long term storage, and to check if a signal was properly connected. Just like with power tool. I got a 1 3/4 HP router which I will probably used at full capacity once in the next 10 years.
They have to aggressively protect their trademark, or they risk losing it. If they accept and allow 2,000 more, the next guy can come along and say their shipment of 2,000 doesn't do harm to Fluke, see they allowed SparkFun to do it. Fluke needs these cheap knock-offs out of circulation.
There's a difference between saying "we're not gonna be dicks and make you eat a loss because customs thinks your orange is too close to our yellow" and "we think this is a fine product and are willing to let you use our trademark". Admittedly, it's a fine line, but they could easily make it clear which side of that line they are on.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
I just came from MicroCenter in Minneapolis MN, the $14.95 DMM is for sale there.
I dabble in electronics, Fluke is a very nice MultiMeter. TheRegnirps claimed on sparkfun when Fluke was being seen in a bad light: " I used to have a high voltage supply (I used for calibrating photomultipliers) from Fluke, a 5kV supply with rotary switches all the way down to 0.1 volt steps and it was dead on. This kind of thing is not easy. "
A separate post not a reply, even stole a quote; in hopes others follow Flukes example as well as an attaboy to Fluke.
There's a famous HBS case study on Dewalt. Black & Decker bought the brand (which was at that point restricted to woodworking tools), and used it to rebrand their Black & Decker professional line. They chose yellow/black as a color scheme since it was familar both from the "safety sign/tape" schema and because blue was Makita and red was Skil or Hilti or probably a few others as well, so the black/yellow would stand out. They didn't change the actual tools (which got good ratings when people didn't see the B&D branding on them, but construction pros didn't want to bring something to the job site that was the same brand as their popcorn popper), just change the color and name. Market share went up about 8-fold in a year.
I remember reading not too long ago about a particular HVAC manifold that is used for testing systems in the field. The original one had a specific setup and specific color scheme, and was made in the USA. Eventually a Chinese company started to copy it down to the last detail (in some cases including copying the name and model number) but produced a vastly inferior product in the process.
However because some people were acquiring these crappy copies believing them to be the real thing, sales of the original one plummeted. The company very nearly went out of business through no fault their own. Eventually they were able to find who was selling the bad copies and get them to stop doing so, which helped a lot but of course internationally the copyright laws are of quite nearly no significance.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
But the styling is obviously worth something if the knock-off company went out of their way to make their clone have exactly the same styling.
Knock-off manufacturers deliberately making their poor quality imitations mistakable for high quality products is exactly what trademarks and trade dress laws are for.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
When people buy Channel 5 perfume, or a Dior bag, they do not buy a perfume or a bag, they buy a marketing image.
Fluke isn't selling a style or a marketing image or any other form of consumer entertainment. They're selling high-quality multimeters. The style is to make their products look distinctive. The impounded products we're talking about here clone the style, but not the quality. It's the total opposite of media piracy or knock-off perfume, where the end product is identical.
Visit the
What about five years down the line when neither of them are in their retail packaging and all of the logos have worn off the cheapo imitation. Are you too dumb to use a meter when you pick this up off of a bench and trust that it can actually handle 600 V without bursting into flames?
Without the SparkFun logo, anyone who has used a Fluke would look at the meter and say that it's a Fluke. This case has everything to do with trade dress:
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
So if your probe fuse blows without you knowing it, and you go to check if that wire is live, you get a nice zero voltage reading, regardless of whether the circuit is dead or not. The potential consequences of this should be obvious.
Input protection for the voltage/resistance ranges of a properly designed DMM consists of gas discharge tubes, MOVs, PTC thermistors, transorbs, etc. The internal fuses are for the current ranges ONLY, and need to be the HRC type for safety.
Properly designed input protection is the FIRST place that the cheap DMM makers cut corners. The second is properly molded and sealed enclosures, to contain the shrapnel in case of a catastrophic failure. Both are required to achieve proper safety compliance for a Cat III or Cat IV meter, which is what you want for measuring mains voltage.
A good illustration of what happens to cheap meters under high energy fault conditions is here:
http://www.eevblog.com/2010/05...
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Don't lose sight of the fact that the trademark that Fluke is disputing is over-reach. Nobody put any fake FLUKE logos anywhere, and its blindingly obvious when looking at the display of this thing that you're not making a "FLUKE" measurement, but a knockoff one of mediocre quality.
At first glance it's a Fluke, I've dabbled in purchasing (Ford and Chevy truck parts for the Alyeska Pipeline) it's not a reach to say they could be purchased in error.
Ground wires are green and yellow only after you check them out. I have seen more than one hot green wire. Have also seen where all four wires coming out of the conduit and into a small (10hp) motor were black, no tags or colored tape either.
Passionately Indifferent
Look at Tiffany, they have trademarked a very specific shade of blue. But anyone can use other shades.
The colours "yellow" and "dark grey" aren't very specific. When does something stop being yellow and start being orange or green? When does "dark grey" become "grey" or "charcoal"?
You're assuming that Fluke was behind all of this. Fluke has never been the bad guy here; it was US Customs that denied entry to the multimeters. As has been discussed, this is a nice PR exercise for Fluke towards SparkFun, and now a nice PR exercise for SparkFun. Both companies come out looking better because of this - and quality Fluke multimeters end up in the hands of people eager to learn.
But, let's take your approach. Suppose SparkFun dropped these multimeters onto eBay to make a few bucks. SparkFun comes across as curlish, and Fluke probably wouldn't even see a sales blip. Who actually wins here? Fluke still gets the PR kudos, SparkFun look like a bunch of gits, and some high-quality instruments **don't** make it into the hands of up and coming electronics people.
This doesn't completely make sense (although I also believe Fluke didn't actively initiate the action).
How would the Customs/Border "Protection" guys know whether or not SparkFun had a license from Fluke? Someone at CBP must have suspected something, and made a few phone calls asking questions first. They can't (legally) just claim Trademark/dress infraction and block passage because some random employee had a feeling in his gut.
They must have contacted someone (either SparkFun or Fluke) who said SparkFun didn't have permission and that the device was infringing. The CBP guy wouldn't have just pulled up the Trademark/dress filing and in his 'expert' capacity to interpret this decided to block the shipment without verifying the current ownership/licensee chain.
If it was SparkFun that sent a poorly written response and got themselves into trouble, then so be it. But, it may have been Fluke answering a simple question without thinking about the final outcome of their action.
Think of this like having the cops turn up at your door asking if you owned the car parked across your driveway, and you simply answer no and close the door. Then later that day your daughter's boyfriend complains that you had his car towed.
Yeah, that's what also kinda confuses me.
I've had a anthracite/dark grey/light black/whatever you want to call it meter with a yellow rubber holster in the 80s.
And it sure wasn't a Fluke.
If this isn't a prime example of why IP laws need to be tossed into the garbage i don't know what is.
Sure, its great Fluke stepped up the plate to help out, but this should have never been an issue in the first place. It's a *COLOR* ... geesh
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Actually knock off bags and other wearable fashion items have major questions about durability.
Saddleback Bags did a great video about the quality of their bags.
http://youtu.be/a11wlngpuSY
If I'm buying certain brand names, part of that brand name is a trust that it won't fall apart on me in six months.
It's not just image, it's also quality.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
Now think really hard, isn't there a category of objects that all have yellow markings?
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
That's only 4 flukes right:)
Why should anyone develop any product if someone else can just clone it and sell it cheaper?
This happens all the time, with millions of products, including the food you eat. And it also happened with all the products that today enjoy the protection of patents and trademarks, before that type of product was even eligible for patents and trademarks.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
Compare what happens to multiple brands of cheap meters vs. a Fluke when intentionally whacked with high energy pulses:
http://www.eevblog.com/2010/05...
Notice that ALL the meters were damaged in this test. But the Fluke simply died gracefully, without exploding, catching fire, etc.
Remember "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"? Help make it a reality again! http://soylentnews.org
Perhaps you're right, but there are a LOT of DMMs out there with a yellow case. It's not just Sparkfun who're copying Fluke's look.
soylentnews.org
We're basing the idea that the multimeter was confiscated for being yellow from what was said in a sparkfun blog post. They have an incentive to down play the violation.
Indeed, If you look at the actual USPTO filing it is clearly stated that "Color is not claimed as a feature of the mark."
I've purchased some cheap multimeters that look a lot like flukes (The way the yellow cover is shaped, the font,spacing on the dial and the curves of the plastic).
They averted bad publicity and raised awareness for the fact that customers need to pay attention that they really get a Fluke device when they want to buy one.
I don't know if you saw a picture of the devices. They look suspiciously much like a real Fluke, they have the same shape, same color, same layout, same print, same large display. That same manufacturer may have made Fluke knockoffs and sent them to the US which is why they were flagged, manufacturing in China may be cheap but you can be guaranteed that you will also contribute to your own brands' knockoff market.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Multimeters are safety devices in the sense that they are often used to measure potentially lethal unknown circuits. There are different safety ratings which specify how much of an overload the meter must accept without failure or even improper operation. This is why the current ranges use (or should use) specially rated fuses which seem outrageously expensive.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...
It was a long time informal standard to associate the color yellow with specially rated or ruggedized multimeters which is no doubt why Fluke adopted it for most if not all of their meters even if they did not meet any enhanced safety specifications which is deceptive at best not that plenty of other manufactures did the same thing. That standard has been deprecated by misuse so red or orange has become the new informal standard (also commonly misused) and of course Fluke marks their ruggedized and intrinsically safe meters in an alternative color style as well. I wonder if they will get a trade dress designations which include orange and/or red at some point.
The Beckman HD series of ruggedized multimeters from the 1980s are the first ones I remember that really took advantage of industrial strength yellow.
Tektronix had a run-in with Fluke over this before 2000 with their recently introduced handheld multimeters which were black with a yellow rubber guard. Tektronix changed the guard color to black or blue and then later Fluke bought their handheld multimeter division and discontinued them.
All insulting aside, the right environment would be a lab or workplace where you expect to find a Fluke meter. The way to deal with it is trademark law. For my money, this story is not about Fluke being bad, but US Customs doing an excellent job of protecting us from counterfeit products.
To be clear, I mean specifically the "multimeter with a yellow border = Fluke" trademark. As plenty of people in comments to the previous article noted, yellow is the natural color for a safety device.
You're completely correct. And I, not being a design specialist, can look at the Fluke design and make about 10 different variants that wouldn't match their designs while still using just grey and yellow. Seriously, just reversing the colors probably would have bypassed the trade dress requirements. If not, any number of different options could have been used. Having looked at images of the devices in question, it's clear they're trying to mimic Fluke's trade dress.
Whether you agree with trade dress or not, it's obvious that the Chinese version is trying to mimic, probably to mislead potential buyers. The effort to make a reasonably standard design of their own, with standard safety colors (which doesn't include grey), would have been a minimal effort.
Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?