Novice needs help with crazy project

Will such a device be illegal in competition?

Not yet!

The ribbon cable is a standard in the electronics industry and different lengths are available; did not look to see if 15 inch length available. THe worst problem is reliably sealing all of the electronics from water and moisture.

Illegal to sell it, or to profit by using it. But building one for fun? Don't think so.

Cheers,

Phil Hobbs

From the 'keep it simple' school of design: Consider something like a periscope. Optics only, no electronics.

-- Paul Hovnanian mailto: snipped-for-privacy@Hovnanian.com

------------------------------------------------------------------ Porsche 928: 0 to c in 2.125 years, 2.435 light-years per mile^3 of gas

There was significant debate about this point ~10 years ago with regards to cryptography. A good archive of it is at:

Building one for education (to learn the art being taught in the patent) is fine. Building one to avoid paying for a widget? Very doubtful, but who is going to come after you?

Not true. It can legally be built to learn what is being taught in the patent and even extend the patent.

Check out the "education" exemption.

How about using a CCD security camera and an NTSC LCD display? I have a small panel I found surplus that accepts standard video, the optics could get clunky though.

--- Whether someone is going to come after you or not is beside the point. The law states that the inventor is entitled to benefit from his effort in inventing and then disclosing the invention for the benefit of mankind and, without his permission, copies of the invention for practical use may not be made during the lifetime of the patent.

Since the OP knows that the device has been patented, if he copies it without the permission of the inventor then he's infringed the patent and denied the inventor income which should have accrued to him.

There really is no problem here, and if the OP wants to copy the invention and avoid any heartburn at all, all he has to do is get permission from the owner of the patent.

-- JF

Absolutely *NOT* true. It is OK for one to build a device for one's own use; what is protected is *selling* the devices without a licence from the patent owner.

You are correct (as usual).

I think you should check your facts.

--- Absolutely, totally, incontrovertibly wrong.

I posted these links before:

Didn't you bother to read them?

This subject has come up in these newsgroups before, and the last time it did I called the USPTO and talked to one of the people there about infringement and whether it was legal to copy a patent for one's own use and the answer was a resounding NO!

Makes sense if you think about it. What if you were an inventor and everyone made a copy of your invention for their own use. Where would that leave you?

-- JF

One reality that is being ignored here is that there are no "Patent Police" and the word Illegal does not ever apply to patent infringement. Reality is that if the patent holder (and only the patent holder) feels that you have infringed on his patent and he is willing to spend the money for the lawyers, then he can file a law suit against you to recover damages. Certainly in this case, the probability of this occurring is near enough to zero to be dismissed.

--- Please bottom post.

While there are no "Patent Police", 35 U.S.C. 271:

clearly spells out what is permissible and what isn't with regard to infringement. What is allowed is legal and what isn't is illegal, and while there are no criminal penalties for breaking that law, civil action in the form of a lawsuit may be taken against the infringer in a Federal court, with possibly disastrous consequences resulting to the infringer.

While the probability of the OP being sued for infringement in this case may be vanishingly small, the point isn't whether he'll be "caught" or not, it's that if he chooses to copy the patent without the patent owner's permission he'll be infringing the patent, which he shouldn't, because it's theft of intellectual property and isn't the right thing to do.

-- JF

Fun experiment, but it will slow you down a lot due to the additional drag and to the time it will cost as you try to get a good visual fix with it.

Most people would call me a strong distance swimmer, but those who know - good swimmers - would correctly call me a crappy swimmer. (~ 36 minutes per mile) But even being crappy, I can look when I breath during every fourth stroke, so you can, too, without missing a stroke. You do have to modify the head rotation when there's a lot of churn, so the fourth stroke is marginally less effective than it is in the pool. But heck - if there's enough churn, follow it. The guys/gals making it are heading for the same buoy.

Ed