protecting circuit design

My second one.

Engineering is not physics, so there is nothing new in engineering. If you have a product with a neat "new" feature, it makes no difference at all what the actual circuit is. Any engineer worth his salt will be able to redesign your "simple" circuit, based only on its features, before you can sup that pint of Guinness.

Kevin Aylward snipped-for-privacy@anasoft.co.uk

SuperSpice, a very affordable Mixed-Mode Windows Simulator with Schematic Capture, Waveform Display, FFT's and Filter Design.

as i told the last guy that asked this:

the only protection you have is to be the best at what you're doing. i'll add to that - and hope to get the bear's share of the market.

being first to market is a bonus if you can gain satisfied customers and momentum.

good luck. mike

Actually, no, its not a bonus. "22 Immutable Laws of Marketing" - Jack Trout. *The* most important thing to product success is to be first. Its absolutely key.

Kevin Aylward snipped-for-privacy@anasoft.co.uk

SuperSpice, a very affordable Mixed-Mode Windows Simulator with Schematic Capture, Waveform Display, FFT's and Filter Design.

Patents are expensive and the possibility of your circuit being close enough to someone elses patent to infringe on their rights, is pretty good. Also if you copyright it, it will be available for all to see and copy, if it is that easy to create. Most guitar pedals are of such simple design that they are easy to copy, and the manufacturers charge big bucks for them as they are the only devices that produce their unique signature sound. Their solution however is quite simple. They merely cover their completed circuit in nontransparent resin. The resin is usually so hard that you would have to pulverize the board to gain any access to the design and when you open the box all you see is a glob of solid plastic in the middle of the circuit board.

It bugs me when people just jump inti a thread without having read and comprehending the group prior input. Doe this miff anyone elsae

8*) Pat

We're all far too busy being duplicitous.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

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Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

Thanks for the information. I didn't know that this was a possibility. Frank

"Michael A. Terrell" wrote:

News is not email. News is not a real-time medium. Some people consider it extremely rude to top post.

Michael

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thanks. i'll remember that.

mike

For the latest copy of Abo SF... Use snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.net when e-mailing me your address.

Expanding on the many "you can't" answers: keep in mind that not all good ideas are necessarily good businesses to be in. If you can't protect it (and I completely agree with the other posters that if it's only a PCB, you can't) it's a decidedly bad business to start *unless* you margins (profits) are so low that nobody cares to notice your business - which probably isn't your intent.

Is that the word you really wanted to use?? Or maybe a Freudian slip? Or maybe that's the case????

mike

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Well, there are ways to have some protection:

1) Copyright PCB patterns used, mechanical constructs, etc as works of art. 2) If possible, patent some unique aspect or aspects of the device. 3) Make confusing PCB layouts: by hiding vias under parts; adding what looks like a via but is not; putting vias in that would short and destroy some critical part - and drilling out the copper in the hole, filling the hole with an insulator, then flowing solder over the pad hole to make it *look* good; adding extra circuitry that does no useful function - but looks like it might be needed for some exotic reason; add traces that go all over hell and gone and wind up where the connection can do no harm, etc. 4) Have enough profit that you can both create a "war chest" to live off of, as well as undercut the loball copycats (if any) so much that *they* are driven out of business (and you either still make some profit or the war chest is used to draw from).

While we are on hates, "Top posting" :)

Duplicate answers actually are one of the useful things in some respects because there is a good chance that the answer is correct if people unrelated to each other suggest the same or similar solutions

I never know whether to acknowledge posts following a request, I suppose it's courtesy to do so but serves no real purpose. Surely if a solution is not adequate then the poster will re-phrase and re-ask the question.

If you respond to a proposed solution how many times do you do it, do you respond to the solutions you have decided to ignore?

Courtesy and humour do not travel well in newsgroups, I have posted what I considered to be humourous comments only to cringe when I read them back (normally after posting when it is too late), why do they read OK before you hit the send button? I personally think it is better to stick to asking and answering, that way people don't get upset through misunderstanding. but each to his own and without the occasional slagging match or humourous comment I suppose it could get boring.

Many potential copycats won't notice your business or think it is not important. I guess for example Boeing could very well copy a guitar effect pedal if they wanted. But they don't have the distribution channels, and for them doing something probably has a lot of fixed overhead.

Now take a look at your product. Why would people buy it? Take care of those aspects.

Is it some special feature or effect quality? Then hide it under epoxy, grind markings of chips, mount ICs mirror-wise, whatever you can think of.

But it may be very well that your product is so great because it has been used by band such-and-so. That is a feature that is not so easy to copy: essentially the purchaser buys peace of mind - he know's what he's getting. And if your price is not far out of the realm of the competition (may not be hard - you were there first and will have better economy of scale) they will buy yours.

Now I'd worry if my invention was a brilliant one that is easy to copy, and there is a competitor with good name and good distribution channels, and good economies of scale in manufacturing. That one could copy your features. In which cas eyou can try to create either situation above. Or patent - which is useless against a much larger opponent, I'd think.

Thomas