Is it libelous to say that an electronics product is a "blatant copy" of some other product when in all likelihood there are significant differences in say the PCB layout or particular components used in the implementation?
Is "blatant copy" with respect to an electronics product totally a matter of subjective personal opinion or are there objective facts about that statement that can be discussed in a court case?
The court of California sided with the defendants in this one:
The author of the article says:
"And that?s the way the system should work. I would hope we continue to have opinions ? even strongly-worded ones ? about music and music technology."
Except IMO whether some electronics product's design is a "copy" or not of some other design is not strictly a personal opinion, that claim can be to some degree objectively evaluated by an engineer.
You are asking two different questions here. One is about defamation and t he other is about copying a product. What is behind all this? Are you pla nning on copying a product? Has someone accused you of copying a product? Has someone else copied a product and you have or want to publicly state t his?
I don't have any vested interest in any of the parties in the case in the article. It was I thought interesting case related to electronics, business ethics, and law that is at least somewhat on-topic - are you my mother? Sheesh!
The issue of defamation and copying are related since whether the statement is defamatory or not depends entirely on whether the claim is determined to be true or not to some standard. I ask about tube radios because one would think there would be some legal precedent here
some other product when in all likelihood there are significant differences in say the PCB layout or particular components used in the implementation? "
Interesting subject. Of course this is involved with the music industry so intellectual property rights are blurred. But the suit involves a device. N ow, let's say we got DA convertors for audio. Audiophiles use them on CD pl ayers with the optical output. There are only so many ways to do that, and discrete components would be out of the question.
So now comes the chip manufacturers. Well they designed the chips for all t hese things and therefore all of those units are derivative works. What con stitutes a derivative work ?
This goes back to the question that if certain devices and perhaps PCB desi gn cause it to be a derivative work. Did Behringer design the chips involve d or did someone else ? If they designed all the chips involved then all co mpeting units are derivative. They probably licensed them, if they own it.
Thing about this is that even libel per quod requires proof that the statem ents made are untrue. Seems to me the court saw it that way because they al most always rule in favor of the big guy. They still have to prove that, as well as the damages when this premise for a case is used.
But now it is the defendant's turn. Now they must prove some damages or dem onstrate those damages. Not necessarily tangible losses of this date, but o f any date. That would mean what Berhinger sued for in the first place.
Depending on their scale of operations, the award could be minimal or huge. If they prove damages that are tangible, and that would be by lost sales, they could make out like a bandit.
Whoever makes a chip that decodes like MQA, MP4, whatever, there are royalt ies. They just dropped the royalties on MP3 for that. This is not only the chip manufacturers here, this is the chip designer as well as whoever came up with whatever format is involved.
I do not know all that much about intellectual property law, though more th an many. I also know that you can't patent a black box. This is one of the most complex areas of law there is an the US, et alii. But the fact is the court has decided in favor of the defendant, and the complaint was that the libel stems from a blog no less. As a judge, h ow would you treat that ? I n fact I would probably not gone for a jury in such a case, the commoner do es not understand.
Now I assume your query has something to do with electronics design, your o wn. Not having this shit happen to you.
So if I use a different IC to drive a motor, let's say an AD instead of an LM or whatever for discussion sake. You have to change the drive circuitry to that IC even if the function is the same. But the control circuit behind it is the same. Does that change it enough or not ?
I answer this way because I doubt you give a flying f*ck about the particip ants in this suit, you give a f*ck about your own work. No problem.
In the end, I would suggest that innovators who use extant devices and proc esses enlist a knowledgeable (in field) patent attorney. Also there are pol icing agencies that look specifically for violations. They literally buy al l kinds of things and if it looks likely it is a patent violation then it i s reverse engineered to find evidence you can use in court.
They have to keep up with case history, i.e. case law, to be effective. It ain't cheap, but if you got a patent that is really worth protecting, I thi nk it is worth it. If you are making things in the basemen not so much.
Thing is, as much nationality there is in this group, it still seems to be pretty much US based at least when it comes to shit like this. The US laws are the most stringent in the world as far as I know, but other countries d on't have to follow them because the only recourse is to ban their products from the US market. The US is not the world and this could hurt US manufac turers. That goes directly to our import which is a very hot topic these da ys and for all his faults, I think Trump is handling these international ag reements better than any other President.
Like we have an Austrailian say tariffs on steel will hurt OUR economy. BUL LSHIT. The US imports steel form there so it will hurt THEIR economy. Not o urs. Any Keynsians want to argue how imports improve the balance of trade ? I am in for a good laugh.
But it s an issue, and though I do support some of his actions, it is obvio us he lacks the intellect to effectively deal with an issue like this. But then so have almost all of the other Presidents, I would say back to before Lincoln. Which ones have even built anything let alone designed it ? Congr ess ?
So we got a mess. And that is why some slick lawyers thought they were goin g to get over but they LOST ! HAHA.
Nah, I don't have much interest in trying to copy things that have been done before for money. Purely academic interest. The Chinese (e.g. Behringer) do that way better anyway, just about everything worth copying has already been done already and they're way better at that.
Americans are kinda funny about "fakes" - they'll see the strictly Chinese knock-off of an American product and grumble a bit but buy it anyway "well it's just what they do" but if an American company starts copying another American company's product all hell breaks loose. Outrageous! Betrayer!
I think consumers would finally "like" Behringer better if they were strictly Chinese owned and run rather than managed by the Germans.
nd the other is about copying a product. What is behind all this? Are you planning on copying a product? Has someone accused you of copying a produ ct? Has someone else copied a product and you have or want to publicly sta te this?
The real problem you have is that there is no definition of "copying" becau se it is not a legal term and has no meaning in business. If you infringe others IP it means you have violated either copyright, trade secret or pate nts. Nothing else is illegal and has no definition under the law.
So how can someone be right or wrong about accusing someone else of "copyin g" when "copying" is not defined?
** Behringer is not involved in the music industry.
Behringer's business is audio electronics manufacturing, carried out in China and masterminded in Germany.
For years, they reverse engineered successful products form Roland, Mackie and QSC and sold them as their own designs. Some of these were also look a likes of the originals, both externally and internally.
It only applies to stuff that lawyers can parse - safety warnings, business names, issue numbers. You can't explain routing to minimise cross-talk to a judge, so that won't be covered.
One patent case established the fact that the US judge could not understand that quadrature coding and sine and cosine coding described the same technique.
In the absence of a patent, ideas are "free as the air", but expressions of those ideas are not.
Making an exact or substantially exact copy of somebody else's work is AFAIK a copyright violation unless the work is in the public domain. So if your CM starts selling your designs to other people, it's liable.
Reverse engineering, i.e. figuring out how the product works and using the ideas in your own product, is perfectly legal. Trade secrets are no longer protected once they can be learned by a straightforward examination of products that have been offered for sale.
Cheers
Phil Hobbs
--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC / Hobbs ElectroOptics
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510
http://electrooptical.net
http://hobbs-eo.com
"look and feel" copyrights seem like one of those slippery-slope issues that nobody seem to have clear-cut answers for; whether something infringes "look and feel" is one of those "I know it when I see it"-situations that doesn't usually make for writing fair or somewhat objectively-interpretable laws.
That is to say nobody can provide an answer to precisely how many changes you need to make to a form factor before it's no longer a "substantially exact" copy. Is it enough to change the color scheme, or put the jacks on the left instead of the right?
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