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Comment by dessimus | Hacker News Reader

How about SawStop open their patent up first? They've already sued to prevent other tool manufacturers from making their own solutions to the problem, because they want theirs to be licensed. So even though they claim they will open their patent once the feature is enforced, what have they done in good faith to make us believe they won't move the goalposts to opening it, once they have captured the market?

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Presumably there's a reasonable compromise whereby they provide a public license only valid in areas where such safety mechanisms are legally mandated.

They would be forced to license it under FRAND

SawStop was never against licensing the technology, and from what I'm reading about FRAND, it doesn't force the patent holder to open their patents, only to negotiate in a good faith manner that does not discriminate between licensees, meaning they cannot license the tech to DeWalt for $10/saw and try to make Bosch or Ryobi pay $100 per saw. It doesn't say they are forced to give away their IP for free.

Its extremely unlikely they would offer to open up the patent and then say "haha, fooled you!" once the law takes effect. It would do them more harm than good in the long run to lie to lawmakers & everyone else.

But what if they said “unexpected complications arose” and “the release “got delayed due to a legal situation”?

Easy.

'What if'?. What makes you think this is even a possibility?

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