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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.
If you believe fluke's statement on the matter (personally I do), they didn't initiate this whole mess.
Their trademark, which is for "multimeter with yellow border", which they essentially stole from over 20 years of common publicly-available usage during which Fluke's own multimeters were typically grey?
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.
The Ars Technica article notes that the shipment of meters from Fluke exceeds the value of the original dodgy multimeters.
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.
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.
They did... insofar as Fluke having registered for the trade dress in the first place.
People really need to stop blaming companies for participating in the current P&T system that we have. Until you enter "troll" territory (starting legal fights over clearly dubious P&Ts), registering trademarks and patents is just good business sense.
Want to make a change, stop blaming Fluke or whoever and push for patent / trademark reform.
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.
Next week, order some Chinese cars that look suspiciously like Bugatti Veyrons.