Donald Trump’s yes-men at the Consumer Product Safety Commission are withdrawing a series of proposed safety rules, including an appendage-saving safety mandate for table saws. This will mean thousands more fingers lost per year.
Donald Trump’s yes-men at the Consumer Product Safety Commission are withdrawing a series of proposed safety rules, including an appendage-saving safety mandate for table saws. This will mean thousands more fingers lost per year.
While I agree, surely the mandate can make this contingent, or override the patent in the best interests, or even establish the fee as small and fixed so that the owning companies gets some profit while not being able to block other manufacturers.
This can’t be a new situation. I’m sure there’s been government mandates where a single owner has a blocking patent. There’s probably a pattern of how to handle it
Seems like there is an override for federal/military use, not private industry, and the PTI (power tool industry lobby) seems very against being made to use the tech by fiat.
Of course the industry logic are against it. They were against airbags in cars for similar reasons. Sometimes that’s just too bad.
Anyhow, I was thinking more like
Interesting article! There are so many parties and motivating factors involved in all these things. No wonder patent law is its own field of practice!
Reminds me of all the format wars like Beta/VHS, DVD/DivX, and Blue Ray/HD-DVD. It’s not necessarily the best idea the wins, but the one the industry and/or consumers finds the most accessible or valuable.