Hacker News Reader

Comment by bambax | Hacker News Reader

This is really cool! (I too make non-connected things and it's great).

Two things:

> Sheerly Genius sheers are patent pending and our manufacturing process is a trade secret.

Patents are the opposite of secret, ie public. You can't patent something and have it secret at the same time. So your manufacturing process is either secret, and not patented, or patented, and public. (Of course you may have patented something other than the manufacturing process, like a specific knot, etc.)

The second thing is, what about security? Things that never tear or break can be dangerous, for example if you get caught by a moving vehicle, or other problem. It may sound far-fetched and completely improbable... until it happens. What are your thoughts about that?

View on HN

Yes - you are right. That line in the video probably wouldn't have made it by our patent lawyer. We are patent pending. Some elements of how our fiber is produced (not in our patent), and some of the R&D things we are trying are trade secret, but for the purposes of simplicity we are patent pending. The fibers are strong but can be cut with a sharp knife or pointy object - anything EMTs or emergency services would have on hand, or something like a seat belt cutter wouldn't have an issue getting through them.

Aw darn. My first thought was protection from knife attacks.

If that worked, you could also sell to that company making the anti-rape pants.

Yea but if you get incapacitated one of the first things they do to get to the wound is cut the clothes around the wound area. If you have pants make of knife proof material your life could be endangered.

Some sports clothing is designed to be resistant to sharp edges [1]. The link is for some ski basewear.

[1] http://www.energiapura.info/158/PANTA-34-ANTICUTTING

Something thin and flexible won't protect against stabbing very well; the knife will just drive the material into the body. Cut resistant gloves are a thing and usually made of fine metal chain mail, but they're intended for protection from accidents using cutting tools, not assaults. The material used would probably not provide much protection against forceful stabbing.

  Things that never tear or break can be dangerous

They say they've tested to last 50 wears. I'd be surprised if these were more dangerous than a pair of denim jeans in that regard - to say nothing of a pair of leather or aramid lined motorcyclist's trousers.

They do say that the product is patent pending, and the process is a trade secret. These are not mutually exclusive.

You can keep the trade secret until the patent application is published.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com