Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="John Roberts" data-source="post: 115167" data-attributes="member: 126">Re: New Midas M32 ConsoleYes this is a natural progression in a maturing market. There will be companies that sell predominantly on low price to satisfy customers who buy mainly on low price.&nbsp; There is a cost to the larger market when small companies that do most of the innovation find it harder to coexist with large companies that &quot;borrow&quot; their best creative effort and then they lose sales to undiscriminating customers who embrace the cheap solution. This is a natural evolution in a maturing market. The cable tester example is a classic example of a well respected small company industry standard product, that got copied (for appearance and functionality, not everything) then sold for a much lower price. Arguably smart business by the copier, and bad luck for the copied. The law for protecting trade dress (how a product looks) is weak, unwieldy to secure, and hard to prosecute. I am only aware of a handful of successful defenses of trade dress IP (one was in hand held test equipment market). The law for protecting invention via utility patents (how things work) is generally much stronger but appears insufficient to protect innovators in all cases.&nbsp; &nbsp; JR</blockquote>

[QUOTE="John Roberts, post: 115167, member: 126"] Re: New Midas M32 Console Yes this is a natural progression in a maturing market. There will be companies that sell predominantly on low price to satisfy customers who buy mainly on low price. There is a cost to the larger market when small companies that do most of the innovation find it harder to coexist with large companies that "borrow" their best creative effort and then they lose sales to undiscriminating customers who embrace the cheap solution. This is a natural evolution in a maturing market. The cable tester example is a classic example of a well respected small company industry standard product, that got copied (for appearance and functionality, not everything) then sold for a much lower price. Arguably smart business by the copier, and bad luck for the copied. The law for protecting trade dress (how a product looks) is weak, unwieldy to secure, and hard to prosecute. I am only aware of a handful of successful defenses of trade dress IP (one was in hand held test equipment market). The law for protecting invention via utility patents (how things work) is generally much stronger but appears insufficient to protect innovators in all cases. JR [/QUOTE]

Verification