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Comment by jjav | Hacker News Reader

> Amazed at the amount of people here who would clearly be against seatbelts if they were to be made a legal requirement today.

That is not a representative analogy. Imagine if in the 50s there was only one company that manufactured seatbelts and they owned every imaginable patent related to preventing car occupants from hitting surfaces in an accident (so another company couldn't for example invent the airbag because they'd block that too - see Bosch and a completely different implementation that Saw Stop sued out of the market).

Improved safety would be great, but legislation should never mandate a monopoly to a single manufacturer.

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SawStop actually granted Bosch a license to their safety patents for Reaxx some time ago. Moreover, they said during the hearing that they'd offer permissive public licensing to their remaining patents should this rule be made effective.

They said, sure. Saw Stop has been such a toxic bad actor around their patents since forever, they don't get any benefit of doubt. I'm certain they'd just back down from that promise as soon as the law passes. How about they make all their patents public domain beforehand, to motivate passing the law (and I'd that point I'd be happy to support the law).

And imagine if this law passes and Saw Stop has monopoly on table saws. Sure, today you can buy one for $900 but nothing will prevent them from raising that to like $5000 when nobody else is allowed to build a table saw.

You do have some kind of proof for this wild accusation.. right?

Saw Stop's original patents are expiring. Reaxx will come back on the market and there will be a superior alternative that doesn't self-destruct. Saw Stop defending their patents during their period of exclusivity is the entire point of the patent system. There is no reason to vilify them for it when they used it to launch a successful business.

There is a huge difference between defending a patent in a free market and regulatory capture mandating a product.

The patent system is not very compatible with highly regulated markets, it changes the game from choosing to buy something innovative to a non-voluntary overreach.

What is toxic about their behavior? It seems like they genuinely invented the mousetrap for this particular type of mouse and wanting to be paid for that invention seems commercial rather than inherently toxic.

An ancestor comment mentioned a patent using electricity to detect flesh in sheep sheerers from 1982...

Detecting flesh using electricity probably dates back from the voltaic pile, more than 200 years ago.

But it wasn't used to stop sawblades. How to reliably detect flesh without too many false triggers, do it fast enough, on a spinning blade, and as part of a complete system that includes the brake and actuation mechanism. That's what the patent is about, not the vague idea of using electricity to detect flesh.

> Moreover, they said during the hearing that they'd offer permissive public licensing to their remaining patents should this rule be made effective.

It sounds incredibly naive to think this will happen. If they haven't done it so far why would they do it when the government mandates that you have to be their customer?

Because any rule should trivially have 'permissive public licensing' as a requirement?

Indeed, and Bosch did not reenter the market with a Reaxx because they believe that people will not spend the extra money. For me this is a very strong argument for a mandate.

Yes the mandate will both drive down prices and force adoption. Both good things

Volvo released it's seatbelt patent to the public, as TTS has vowed to do so if the CPSC mandates AIM. The last 20 years is not the present.

>However, one key patent — the "840" patent — is not set to expire until 2033. To stave off potential competitors, it describes the AIM technology very broadly. In a surprise move at February's CPSC hearing, TTS Tooltechnic Systems North America CEO Matt Howard announced that the company would "dedicate the 840 patent to the public" if a new safety standard were adopted. Howard says that this would free up rivals to pursue their own safety devices or simply copy SawStop's. At the hearing, he challenged them "to get in the game."

Saw Stop initially tried to get other companies to license their patent. They all declined because they didn’t want the extra cost. It was only after Saw Stop started manufacturing their own saws and proved there was a market demand for people not cutting their fingers off that all the other manufacturers suddenly decided they wanted to implement it.

No other manufacturers have implemented it, have they?

Ok, take away seat belt analogy.

How about air bags. Those are a better one.

Air bags can cause harm to people who can't sit far enough away from the steering column [1], while there are some more advanced technology air bags that may mitigate that risk, the average airbag in the average car is not so advanced.

[1] https://www.cbc.ca/news/air-bags-may-harm-tall-small-people-...

Neither are these safety devices being proposed on table saws, so a great analogy then.

Also the seat belt lock ruins the seat belt and if you ever have to slam on brakes you have replace both the seat belt and the lock.

If you get in an accident and the seat belt saves your life you do in fact have to replace (at least) the seat belt.

GP's point was the false-positives (cases where a seatbelt inertial lock locks in the absence of a collision) are a low three-figure event in the case of a SawStop rather than "you need to lean back against seat to let the belt unlock itself".

I don't think GP is objecting to the cost of a true-positive [in either the saw or seatbelt case] but rather to the cost of a false-positive.

There is actually a notice tag sewed into the seatbelt that is visible when too much force is applied. Most often the spool is no longer operative at that point as well.

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