[Stoves] To patent or not to patent. How about the 'un patent'

Sun Nov 22 14:16:32 CST 2015

Richard, you are on the right track.

You can copyright the training materials and sell it. You can sell supporting services. The course material is not enough for a novice to use alone. You still should write a copyright notice on all the materials. Read the rules of the Berne Convention and how to do that.

Your question about ‎innovations that arise: if it is a result of a collaboration it is likely to viewed as belonging to the group. If you are going to licence or collaborate on something, there should be an agreement about who owns it. This is routine in a manufacturing agreement. Improvements, which might originate entirely by manufacturing staff, belong to the licensor, normally. If you felt it would allow you to provide greater service to the community, you can have innovations based of your material in the public domain, and put into your copyrighted material. Someone else can write their own book but then, they are not you, the keeper of the Source. That's fair game.

Having tried a lot of things from 'steal this stove' to patents, I surest you do whatever looks like it will have the biggest impact. Rebecca's quasi-private sector approach is one way. Roger Samson's approach is more commercial with licence fees for the drawings. The Vesto is made by three licensees on a royalty basis per unit.  The REDI stove is on the same basis. The Parasafe was a contract payment upfront with a fixed price. The Save 80 is technically made inhouse but contracted entirely to others. The Rocket Stove is free to air and as far as I know there is no trademark with that name. There are multiple people using that term going back decades. So many modles. Which one is most appropriate? It may well be Rebecca's that has the most reach. Let's compete for impact!

Regards
Crispin getting blanketed in Lake effect snow

Crispin interesting eh ? One thing re your pentultimate (ish) paragraph: we provide consultancy with the purchase of the manual not apart from it . The distinction is important because beyond endearment of the market, per se the process and promise of same as actualised becomes our real "patent". Of course one can run to china and mass produce any of this but its the customer service aspect they cannot --or would be very unlikely to attempt to-- compete with.
This approach is open to anyone promoting anything anywhere.
But hey maybe it  needs to copyrighted: lol, all.
Richard

Sent from my iPhone

On Nov 22, 2015, at 11:41, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <crispinpigott at outlook.com> wrote:

Dear Richard

Good example.

>…i make up my instructional manual and sell one , then proceed to expose the idea globally .
One can then patent or in this case copywrite the manual …

You can’t patent the manual. Copyright exists in your name automatically without you having to do anything. It is a creative work (provided you didn’t plagiarise it). Patents are different.

>…but would it not, in parallel fashion, be an 'invalid copyright' meaning that they could not sue you.

Someone else cannot copyright your works. Yes, ‘invalid’.

>I see the winning part as being able to continue to distribute the manuals and the market protection part as in the author's provision of personal support to the buyer. Since the product is (hopefully) likely to be adapted to local circumstance across national boundaries, it will likely move beyond anyone's prior art.

Agreed. Other contributions welcome on this point.

>I am therefore not sure if one can infringe on another's prior art (where does another's prior originate anyway?)

Well that is the difference between an invention and a creative work. A photo is not an invention.

>Thats a moot point in itself because in this case, the art we are speaking of is bound up more in the service of co developing a newer locally adapted version of the product, than the product per se. Maybe we need to hire a team of lawyers to define that for us -- then again, maybe not eh ?

You are offering to sell contractual services with a manual which is reasonable, and your reputation will last a lot longer than a patent.

Regards
Crispin

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