Off topic: Thinking of going open hardware and/or open source

[Kobus du Toit]

I am developing new laser tag/skirmish gear for outdoor use.  I am trying some new ways of doing things in my gear.  I am thinking about making my gear open hardware or open source or both, but it is a difficult decision.  I am doing some things that I haven't seen other manufacturers do so it would be nice to keep that for myself.  What I am worried about is if a Chinese factory gets hold of my gear and they think they can do it cheaper or better I will not have the funds to sue them to stop manufacturing so I am wondering if it is even worth it closing up my designs and software.  The good thing about being open is you have so many more people that can help to make a good product.

I am hoping that the people that will manufacture the gear would normally be hobbyist and not operators.  If laser tag/skirmish operators manufacturer the gear themselves from the designs then how will I make money.  How do open hardware/open source companies make money?  On the one side I am thinking "patent everything".  On the other side I am thinking "I don't have the money to patent everything or sue people that steal from me".

I need input please :)

[Dan Newman]

On 17 Feb 2013 , at 4:14 PM, Kobus du Toit wrote:

> I am developing new laser tag/skirmish gear for outdoor use. I am trying
> some new ways of doing things in my gear. I am thinking about making my
> gear open hardware or open source or both, but it is a difficult decision.
> I am doing some things that I haven't seen other manufacturers do so it
> would be nice to keep that for myself. What I am worried about is if a
> Chinese factory gets hold of my gear and they think they can do it cheaper
> or better I will not have the funds to sue them to stop manufacturing so I
> am wondering if it is even worth it closing up my designs and software.

Correct. And in reality all you *might* accomplish is
getting an injunction on that particular brand of imports. They will
then pop up again under a different name. If you actually sued them
and won, all you would have is judgement. Good luck actually collecting
on it. (This is one of the things which people don't grasp: fine, you
won in court. And you think defendent will then just open their wallet
and pay you? HA! Fat chance that. You need to coerce them to pay
using leverage such as liens. However, if they are in another country,
this starts becoming difficult. And if they are in, say, China, it's
basically impossible unless you are a large corporation and have means
of providing leverage with the local government or other, large
Chinese manufacturers.)

> The good thing about being open is you have so many more people that can
> help to make a good product.
>
> I am hoping that the people that will manufacture the gear would normally
> be hobbyist and not operators. If laser tag/skirmish operators
> manufacturer the gear themselves from the designs then how will I make
> money. How do open hardware/open source companies make money? On the one
> side I am thinking "patent everything". On the other side I am thinking "I
> don't have the money to patent everything or sue people that steal from me".

Research the various copyright / licensing choices in which you can restrict
usage to non-commercial usage. Then at least honest, commercial folks will
seek to enter into a mutually beneficial arrangement with you. The unethical
people will do as they always do and no amount of copyrights or patents will
help you.

Dan

[Billy Zelsnack]

On Sunday, February 17, 2013 6:14:53 PM UTC-6, Kobus du Toit wrote:

I am developing new laser tag/skirmish gear for outdoor use.  I am trying some new ways of doing things in my gear.  I am thinking about making my gear open hardware or open source or both, but it is a difficult decision.  I am doing some things that I haven't

Sounds like an ideal Kickstarter project.

 
>The good thing about being open is you have so many more people that can help to make a good product.

I'd not count on that. Only very popular projects generate non-negligible feedback.

[Elbot]

don't bother closing up the design, a clever chinese engineer can always reverse engineer your stuff. I have a friend who does just that for a living in china. However, DO patent your stuff. You can be open source and allow makers, tinkerers, and makerbotters change and improve your designs for free, BUT if the Chinese try to sell their knockoffs in America, you can get an injunction to have the stuff pulled off the shelves so that they cannot sell them and the merchandise would have to be destroyed for scrap.

Get a "provisional patent" as it it doesn't need a lawyer (IANAL). You just describe your invention. It only protects you for 1 year until you file your non-provisional (real) patent. so, it gives you 1 year to see if you can sell it and if it is worth it to hire a lawyer to file a real patent that will protect you for 19 more years.

This would make it semi-open source, IMHO, it would give enough openness to fuel improvements and technological advancement, but protects you enough so that you can still put food on your table. Just put a "donation" link on your website where people would pay you on the honor system a modest royalty for commercial use.

[Joseph Chiu]

A provisional patent application (PPA) does not directly provide any patent protection -- you have to have an issued patent for that -- but it effectively gives you the earlier filing date of the PPA when you do actually go through the utility patent application process.  As Elbot has mentioned, this effectively give you a one year window where you can start to disclose your invention to see if it has any market value so that you can better decide to file for the "real" patent.

The other advantage that it confers is the ability to mark your product "patent pending" while you are producing the product during that one year window.  A patent lawyer once told me that for most products, where a utility patent is not really cost effective, the best way to protect your product is to build enough product with "patent pending" during the one year window, and then sell that inventory years into the future.  Obviously, this won't work with "perishable" products, which most tech goods are, but using the "patent pending" to ward off potential infringing parties is still a good tactic.

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[Billy Zelsnack]

Are you willing to spend more money on patent attorneys than your competitor? If not then a patent is more than worthless and is just a distraction. Patents are nuclear weapon trading cards only meant for super powers.

[Matt Minuti]

I seriously doubt you've made such a new, nonobvious improvement to laser tag that it's actually patentable. If it is, all the power to you; get a provisional ASAP and see if you can drum up enough interest in the thing to justify going for a real patent. If not, you had nothing to worry about. If so, then you've got protection/exclusivity/saleable IP/whatever to do whatever you want with, at least in the world of law-abiding business. Hasbro can always sue and drag it out till you run out of money, and then buy it off you, and foreign companies can always manufacture it just about without worry.

With open hardware, you are often protected by brand recognition, usually obtained by being active in some community, and having general goodwill. It's a lot more work than people think to source parts, have boards made, have injection molds made, have quality control, keep stock, etc. Supply chain is a big deal, and one of the reasons China often has an advantage.

There's also the slightly less altruistic route: open-source the previous generation, or most-but-not-all of the stuff. The rest of the details are an exercise left to the reader.

Best of luck - laser tag is excellent fun! :)

[Laird Popkin]

You could open source for non-commercial use, so that hobbiests could print their own, people could improve the design, etc., but a manufacturer would need to license your improvements.

I've filed quite a few patents, and it's a good exercise, but expensive. Aside from the ability to sue, the patent process forces you to think things through more thoroughly than you would otherwise, and to research what else is out there. But it's quite time and money consuming, so don't be surprised if it takes $10K in filing fees and legal time by the time you're done, and many solid weeks of effort, then an ongoing effort to pursue the patent through the process, then more money to file internationally (if you care).

Short of that, you can mail yourself a copy of your invention, so it's date stamped by the USPS, and leave it sealed as proof. That won't give you any right to sue anyone, but you can at least prove prior art to defend yourself is someone else copies your idea and patents it. Which has happened before.

Of course, as others have pointed out, the law only matters as far as you can enforce your patents, etc. If you think that it's really worth a lot in the long run, spend the money to file the patent. Then if your idea catches on, perhaps you can use the patent as leverage in an acquisition. Big companies like patents, and you could get your company acquired by one laser tag company in order to use against another one. :-)

- LP

[Kobus du Toit]

Matt Minuti, not sure if it is patentable.  When I am finished I will see what I can do.  The info from the guys on the forums do help alot

I am an operator and this is more about solving the issues we have and since I will develop it myself I can hopefully make it better.  If it is good enough for us then I believe it will be an item to sell.  If it sells it is just a bonus.

Maybe I will sell so many I can actually enforce the patents :)

[Bottleworks]

FYI. You have 12 months to file. See below:

PROVISIONAL APPLICATION FOR PATENT FILING DATE REQUIREMENTS

The provisional application must be made in the name(s) of all of the inventor(s). It can be filed up to 12 months following the date of first sale, offer for sale, public use, or publication of the invention, whichever occurs first. (These pre-filing disclosures, although protected in the United States, may preclude patenting in foreign countries.)

[Matt Maier]

On Sunday, February 17, 2013 5:14:53 PM UTC-7, Kobus du Toit wrote:

I am developing new laser tag/skirmish gear for outdoor use.  I am trying some new ways of doing things in my gear.  I am thinking about making my gear open hardware or open source or both, but it is a difficult decision. 

 

Why is open source an option? Do you expect to attract and nurture a community of independent developers? Are you going to specifically design the hardware so that it's easy for people to hack? Are major elements of it dual purpose (as in they work for more than just laser tag)? Open source is primarily a way to share costs. It makes the most sense in areas that everyone uses all the time. It does not make sense in areas that only a couple people use every now and then. For example, it makes much more sense to open source an operating system (like Android) than to open source a game (like Angry Birds).

 

What are your personal motivations? Research consistently shows that open source developers are NOT motivated by profit. They are motivated by 1) an intrinsic desire to solve a challenging problem and/or 2) an extrinsic desire to impress their peers. Open source is not a good way to make a lot of money for yourself. If you want to improve the general state of laser tag technology, then open source makes sense. If you want to start a business that can pay your mortgage and maybe earn you a nice vacation in a few years, then open source isn't a clear option. Basically, to be "open source" your top priority has to be open. If your top priority is profit then by definition you can only be partly open, you can't actually be open source.

 

 I am doing some things that I haven't seen other manufacturers do so it would be nice to keep that for myself.  What I am worried about is if a Chinese factory gets hold of my gear and they think they can do it cheaper or better

 

Well...it probably won't be a Chinese factory. It will probably be an existing laser tag equipment company that already has a good relationship with a Chinese factory. However, that risk exists no matter what you do.

 

I will not have the funds to sue them to stop manufacturing so I am wondering if it is even worth it closing up my designs and software. 

 

First, there's nothing stopping a company from reverse-engineering your hardware. The thing about hardware is that you can't encrypt it. Then, even if you have a patent on it, all they have to do is change it slightly and BOOM, they get around your patent. Even if they do blatantly violate your patent, enforcing the patent takes time and resources. If you get a judgment then that takes even more time and resources to collect.

 

Second, it takes a certain amount of time for even a powerful company to put a new product line into the field. Since they can't do that before you field yours AND it is proven successful in the market place, you have at least a year (more like two or three) head start on them. Hopefully you used that head start to continue innovating so that by the time they copy your product you are already introducing a newer/better product.

 

Third, it's possible to design your hardware so that it is too hacker-friendly for a competitor to directly copy. For example, if the plastic cases are designed so that they can be 3D printed they will not look "professional" enough for a bigger company to put their name on. If the circuit bords are designed to be profitable in small runs they won't be profitable in large runs. Etc. That way your hardware designs can be released to the hackers but a big company would have to redesign them from scratch anyway. So you aren't actually giving them anything they can use to copy you. A copycat is in the same position they'd be in if you hadn't released the design files.

 

 The good thing about being open is you have so many more people that can help to make a good product.

 

You CAN have a lot of people. IF you put a lot of work into nurturing the developer community. You can't just post the files and call it a day. You have to provide forums and mailing lists and be available for discussions and whatnot. Also, you might not find a lot of overlap between the people who like designing circuit boards in their spare time and the people who like playing laser tag. The former is okay with laser tag hardware as an interesting project, but the latter WILL NOT accept a product that is full of bugs or is missing features because they're "coming later." Most people who spend money on a gadget want it to work because they want to play with it. Very few people are willing to stare at it while it doesn't work because they think making it work is fun. Those people definitely exist, but you'll have to make sure to keep two very different communities happy.

 

I am hoping that the people that will manufacture the gear would normally be hobbyist and not operators.  If laser tag/skirmish operators manufacturer the gear themselves from the designs then how will I make money. 

 

It seems extremely unlikely that a laser tag operator has the means/motivation to actually manufacture their own equipment. They are probably operating a facility because that's what their strengths are and where their interests are. I doubt they want to learn about manufacturing and I strongly doubt they want to provide their own tech support. They are going to be leaning on you to warranty and support the equipment. As soon as they make something themselves they become responsible for it working; they can't just call you and tell you to fix it. Again, most people don't want to hack, they just want to play.

 

 How do open hardware/open source companies make money?  

 

They're new, so there aren't really any case studies yet. But they seem to get most of their business from hackers/developers. Arduino, SparkFun, Makerbot, SeedStudio, the many RepRap stores, the drone makers, etc. They sell to people who make things, not people who use/consume things. Chumby tried to sell to consumers and that didn't last long. Open Source Ecology is a good example. They're having a really hard time getting people to actually use their machines. I think the only one that's sold to consumers in any volume is the Liberator.

 

On the one side I am thinking "patent everything".  On the other side I am thinking "I don't have the money to patent everything or sue people that steal from me".

 

Technically, if you release it under an open license then it's nearly impossible to steal from you ;-)

 

It seems unlikely that you'll ever see any benefit from having a patent. Odds are that even a successful laser tag design won't generate enough revenue all on its own to be worth poaching. I imagine most of the profit comes from the support services after the actual purchase. A competitor would have to be confident that they could support anything they sold, so they would be unlikely to just copy yours overnight. Even if they did, they would have to sell at a loss to match your price because they have to learn all the things you already know. Additionally, nobody is going to even think about copying it until it becomes commercially successful, which will be a year or two. Then it will take them time to actually introduce their own competing version. If they do that then they are confident that they can out-muscle you financially. Your only competitive option will be to innovate and put out a new product that's better than the previous generation...at which point your patent on the old technology is irrelevant.

 

As a small startup you have to compete by being more creative and faster moving than everyone else. Patents are blunt instruments that are too expensive and only work when you have lots of them anyway.

 

Actually, and I saved this point for last...it seems like you are far more likely to have SOMEONE ELSE accuse you of violating their patent than YOU are to make the accusation against a copycat. How confident are you that your innovative new system doesn't depend on a subsystem that's already patented?

[AKron]

Are you trying to build something like the thing I helped develop a
few years ago? Yes, open source it!
http://www.predatorgames.com/

-Andy

[Kobus du Toit]

I am hoping that I don't violate any other patents.  The feedback patent that I am very close to states "if one farm-arm like device shoots another and the second fire-arm like device notifies the first one".  So I am making sure my weapons don't look like fire-arm devices and also that they don't notify each other directly.  I am also talking to a company in the UK that has a feedback system to find out if they have a patent

My big thing is trying to make the process better for mobile operators such as myself rather than creating a whole new smarter technology.  Ofcourse I am planning on adding some nice features that I haven't seen any other manufacturer add to their weapons

This is how it goes when we have to run a 2 hour game for 10 people

Spend 10 minutes each day for a week swapping chargers, because the batteries are Nickel–metal hydride and they discharge rather quickly

Pack 1 hour

Unpack 1 hour

Play 2 hour game

- Worry about guns rusting in the rain

- Worry about LCD displays stopping to work and controllers stopping to work, because of rain

- Worry about batteries exploding

- Players not getting enough help from the weapons

- RF on weapons not always working

- IR error % not high enough so weapons "miss" more than they should

- Worry about switches/buttons failing after being pressed 1000 times

Pack 1 hour

Unpack 1 hour

Zero guns 1 hour

The packing, unpacking and zero'ing time of the weapons increase with the number of people.  We normally try to make sure there are at least two weapons per player that booked so that everybody can have that cool weapon that they really want

I do have some nice things like a compressed IR protocol that I haven't seen anywhere else.  The protocol allows for some huge numbers, in laser tag terms, without degrading the performance of the IR.  Most of my knowledge that I gained has been from reverse-engineering our weapons that we use, from the Milestag website and from experience doing socket programming many many moons ago.

I think the manufacturers want to make too much profit and they cut corners.  I am hoping I can do better by giving a better product, making a bit less profit and selling at a competitive price