Patent

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Patent

Postby Detailed Infinity » Fri Feb 14, 2014 1:09 pm

Is the unit in all its guises protected by a patent? I realise that Piet's original design is open for public use but are the units now being built open for commercial replication if market research by manufacturers shows there's a commercially viable opportunity to be had?

However I realistically think if that was the case it would have been picked up by now or are they not aware of the unit or maybe they await R&D by our experts to do the work for them? Very cynical I know but retro bands (not just Shads) would use an echo which is endorsed by the prime retro music site which is this one. Copicats bring in good second hand prices and are ancient compared to the new valve units being put together by our members.

Bri
Detailed Infinity
 

Re: Patent

Postby Echotapper » Thu Feb 20, 2014 1:09 pm

I guess I'm to start here....

Thanks (again) for bring this up! My objective was to consolidate my knowledge to a range of products that would be both affordable and 'state of the art'. Some years ago I wrote an entry in a popular forum explaining the 'madness' to construct a new echo device based on new technologies while making it a profitable ROI (return of investment) adventure. Obviously, as an engineer, I did those calculations showing that this never could work.
My rational to step-in as an 'open source approach' was based on the fact that protection by patents would add another 5500€ non-recoverable cost on top of the investment of marketing a commercial unit.

So why did I go through this difficult, time consuming mode?

Firstly, opensource is, from my point of view, the most effective way designing this type of product as more people will add value to the product then possible with a very small commercial team. This is not only resource related but also knowledge of the field of electronics and software, both automation and coding DSP processors. In hindsight, this already proved my point as the virtual team is already exceeding my expectations offering 'state-of-the-art' automation including eTap2hw delay-core based products based on improved electronics both solid-state and valves/tubes.

My12 years spent on Echotapper already produced a tremendous payback being extensive social contacts and new friends including the extensive brain gymnastics I would not have missed! My efforts (complete work) is licensed under an umbrella "Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License". My sourcecode is selectively distributed to extend life-cycle to avoid misuse and enable future.

I would also like to mention here, in no specific order, Johan, Philip, Stephen and Chris for the excellent contribution to the design(s) Barry,Peter,Roger,Lars and Dick for the 'sound' testing and suggesting improvements and Johan,Lars, JC, Mick and Ecca for taken the eTap2hw delay-core to other exciting configurations. Without this we could not have this success of more then 250 units build!

On patenting echo equipment the mentioned 5500€ cost for a international patent kills the ROI. I guess the grinding off type-numbers from electronic parts or even embedding the design in (black) epoxy would be the only way out to prevent the copycats to duplicate.

Piet
Echotapper
 


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