Is it unrealistic, or are the companies simply not pursuing that market because it would harm their existing lines of product?
>Unless every relevant patent is opened up, this is extreme regulatory capture and is going to be a price gouging patent licensing circus after it passes
Personally, I'm fine with that.
As per the article, an entry-level SawStop retails for $899.
There's not excuse why this kind of tech isn't in every saw. The low cost of existing saws is a negative externality whose cost (cut off fingers) is borne by the society (insurance companies, healthcare, and government).
edit: if you believe different, please share. But per this article, patents do not seem to be a reason to avoid this tech. And the SawStop v1 was introduced in 2004, so it stands to reason we can now produce patent-free equivalent tech to the 2004 machine.
https://patents.justia.com/inventor/stephen-f-gass
Notice that the vast majority of his patents have to do with various aspects of "active injury mitigation technology", primarily related to saws, and that the most recent one was filed in August 2021. The only patent being offered up is the original--- Patent 9,724,840--- which basically only releases a very specific, early implementation of the safety system that has since undergone 20 years of additional patent activity.
Sawstop, like a lot of other companies, abuse the patent process by filing multiple continuations with the exact same specification. They then let the patent office take its time granting some of them, and claim a 'patent term extension' due to the patent office delays.
So if they filed in 2001, but one of their patents wasn't granted for over 14 years due to the patent office taking 10 years in total to respond to the many arguments over patentability, it may expire in 2031. This seems absurd, but is totally legal. Being run by a patent attorney means they (a) are ninja level at drawing these arguments out and constantly filing appeals to continue examination after a denial by a patent examiner and (b) it doesn't cost them much to do so.
I'm simplifying and my numbers aren't exact, but this abuse is the problem.
Per wikipedia, it seems those continuation patents all expire in 2026 at the latest.
“Hey if your product is so good that absolutely everyone needs to have it we’ll make sure you get no financial reward for developing it”
Regardless of your stance on whether the government should regulate x or y, it's important to understand that the people driving this law do not care about you or your fingers. This is rent seeking; someone who makes safe saws wants to sell more of their saws, and they compete with people who sell less safe saws. They are using the legal system to benefit their own bottom line.
After the real goal is established, reasons like "think of the children" or "think of the fingers" can be fabricated.
People and consumer advocates can feasibly have motives other than greed.
To that point, a regulation requiring "if and only if" per unit licensing is available at (much) less than the worth of the fingers should be a no brainier.
Should it be? Maybe, but that's a discussion out of scope from 'is it in society's interest to mandate inclusion of sawstop's technology, or it's equivalent?'.