Something I just learned tonight at the turning club meeting

[Arlin Eastman]

and that is that PM/Jet are not all of an honest company.

I learned that they copied the Oneway live center and Oneway won the lawsuit but then the Judge told PM that all they had to do is make one change and could use it then.

Now they copied the Tail stock swing away that one of the club members invented and they made an exact duplicate and now selling it under their name and did not contact Tom of JT tools about it at all.

How can a business like theirs do things unethical like that and still feel good about them selves?

I am going to send them a message tomorrow and tell them what I think of their underhanded move.

At least since they have the money is buy the rights to it.

Makes me want to sell my PM3520b and get something else and tell everyone I know about their business practices.

Arlin

[iublue]

Arlin Eastman said:

---

How can a business like theirs do things unethical like that and still feel good about them selves?

I am going to send them a message tomorrow and tell them what I think of their underhanded move.

---

"Feel good about themselves"? They are looking at the bottom line. Look at all that money they saved in actually developing a product. Feeling good is an individual thing, very few corporations have a conscious.

[Shop Dad]

If Tom holds a patent on the swing-away he will need to enforce it. I believe the statute of limitations runs out in seven years if unenforced. (I'm not a lawyer so he should consult with one.) there is "copying" going on all the time and with things like the live center, it may be a question of what is copied and making it different enough. The judge's job is to interpret the law, which may include specifying which part is the issue. We're I Tom I would be unhappy too, but he needs to do something about it.

Doug

[fredhargis]

I think Jet also copied part of Phil Thein's separator design and sells it with their DC line (going from memory). I've seen the ads for the swing away, and thought of the one you had when I saw it.

[PhilJoines]

Businesses don't have morels or ethics. The people running them might. Most don't.

Lee Valley does.

[Arlin Eastman]

I remember now someone posted here what I thought about it and I guess it really did not sink in.

Dirty Rats

Arlin

[robo hippy]

Arlin, that is one of the 'If they are doing it to you, it is just business, but if you are doing it to them, then you are an a******.' If you have patent protection, then you have to enforce it, and that involves lawyers. The unfortunate thing about the legal system, and I think this has been forever, is that it isn't about justice as much as it is about who can play the legal game the best. Many times things will be cloned just on the bet that the patent holder will not be able to enforce their patent. Some companies do the right thing though that is rare.

robo hippy

[n7bsn]

...and the list goes on and on...

Bonnie Klein's products
Ruth Niles products
D-Way tools

Just to name three, off the top of my head that have been copied.

A firm I used to do business with (back pre-retirement) had a fairly good product. Well locked down by patents, copy-rights and "undisclosed" manufacturing processes.

For cost reasons they decided to move production overseas. Within a year they were getting warranty calls from people that they had no record of buying their product, from places that had never carried their product.

The factory they had contracted with to produce their item not only was producing it for the original firm, they were producing it for themselves. Down to the warranty card.

The costs of suing the firm they contracted with were beyond their means and they ended up folding.

PS, I've seen that style swing away before JT Tools was selling it, not saying he didn't design his own, but that the idea is not original to him

[sniper]

Makes me glad I chose a different brand of lathe over the 3520B.

[AnthonyYak]

And the original OneWay chuck was a copy of the Nova, and the list goes on