I actually have a big problem with the reaction on that other forum.
On the one hand, the mods/harris bodyguards say that their forum does not allow mentions of illegal activity when a court of law is required to determine if a patent has been breached, not a moderator's opinion on legality. Once they have made this assumption, then they come at us from a "moral" high ground saying that one should respect an unprotected , unpatented shape.
We have all seen that if one disagrees with several of the assumptions made that support the combination of hiding behind ambiguous rules that can be interpreted by the mods however they like, then what follows is an invitation to go elsewhere if we don't agree. I will probably swallow my tongue before allowing someone to tell me what to think or how to interpret what I see.

There is a certain value to forums when they are structured to keep members a docile and spendy consuming flock of sheep. The recent sale of the forum proves that. It is your choice to take the blue or the red pill, matrix style.

I am going to buy and shoot what I like and let others go broke enforcing a ss patent in an industry that does not support the expenditure of legal fees required to do so.
Less than 200 sps ss have been made and sold. Lets call it $60,000 since 2010? (A generous estimate)
10-15k in legal fees a year and this great shaped slingshot is a losing proposition for sure. Sueing hobbyists is not on the top of any attorney's list. There is no money in it unless collected from their own client.
Do the math, threats are all he's got.
I don't make metal core ss anyway, so he can kiss my catchbox for all I care. I would have liked to see the creativity in ss building not stifled over such a thing though. It is a shame.

Once dankung smartens up and starts cloning sps forks, this whole argument is over anyway.

The longest $0.02 in history!

Be well,
SF

 

The sad thing to me is that a number of merchants sell aluminum cores, and often that is the only thing they have in stock. I'd love to buy some and put some nice scales on them for use by myself or in trade, but all the fun in it would be lost if I posted a picture and then somebody got on a moral high ground about what I'm doing. So.... I avoid it.

 

That is your choice, but there are tons of other core materials to choose from that do not really require pins for structural fortitude.

Buy the core and use it as a template on alternate materials if you so choose.
Water will find its way downhill no matter what. There will be many new ways to build slingshots with different materials. This whole calamity is a speedbump.

 

You have a great point there; an aluminum core would also make a great template, even if a rather expensive one. All the more reason to get a router table.

 

I want one but , like every builder I respect, I have a healthy fear of a router table, hahaha. One day I will have one, I am sure.

 

That's why this place is the place to be. Do it, do it fast, do it now, do it often and above it, do it.

 

I still fear the beast, but having a 3rd set of fingers holding onto the sling (aka, my router jig) has helped me respect it more and be safe about it.

 

I saw the video where you demo'd the router jig. It looks like there would be a learning process to use it, but after that it makes it a lot safer.

 

Doing metal cored laminates without a router is easy as long as you are not in a any hurry. I glue up one side. Once dried I shape it to the core with a drum/bobbin sander. I then drill the pin holes. Now I glue the second side on. Once dried I again use the bobbin sander to shape to the core, then glue the pins in. Once dried they are cut back and sanded flush.
In an ideal world this is now left for a couple of weeks to settle otherwise the pins can become proud as the wood dries more and shrinks.
Either way all the corners to be rounded are now done with the Dremel and some 60 grit paper.
No routers were harmed during the making of any of my slings

 

I like the non-router way anyway because the rounding over can be more pronounced in some areas (like where the thumb and index finger touch the frame) and less in others, making it more comfortable at least for me. But it takes longer because it's done by hand. Good for one-offs, not so good for production runs.

 

I think you are confusing "patent infringement" and "inducing infringement ". I don't think being outside the US provides protection from a lawsuit about inducing infringement. They are two separate things.

 

I doubt it would really be worthwhile putting forth a lawsuit for infringement or inducing infringement on this patent anyway. It's not like Daisy or Trumark are going into massive production runs of metal core slingshots to sell in Walmart. A lawsuit to stop the tiny amount of production that's going on wouldn't be worth it. My guess is a cease/desist letter from a lawyer is about as far as it would normally be taken beyond nasty remarks in a particular forum.

 

It stopped me! I sure dont want to break any laws, especially with a slingshot.

 

oh, come on. It could be fun. Let's all pick a law and break it together. Of course a patent isn't a law, so it wouldn't count.

But... in China you can get out of jail by coming up with new patents.

 

I might have been all for that years ago. But that was before I found the lord. Its the straight and narrow for here on out.

 

But there has to be something!

 

The statement you made that I put in bold explains why you think this is going in circles. Lawsuits CAN go across boundaries. They are very difficult to do because of jurisdiction issues, but not impossible. Lawsuits are about damages, not laws per se.

This article shows that it is possible for a US citizen to sue a Canadian citizen (BTW I'm not trying to pick on you specifically as a Canadian), and then goes into all of the difficulties. But the point is that it IS possible, and that you are confusing the issue of laws vs. suing. http://www.canadianunderwriter.ca/news/you-can-t-sue-me-i-m-canadian/1000110799/?&er=NA

This short article from the US Patent and Trade Office talks about infringement. http://www.uspto.gov/patents-maintaining-patent/patent-litigation/about-patent-infringement Here's the first paragraph from that article (underlining is mine):

"Patent infringement is the act of making, using, selling, or offering to sell a patented invention, or importing into the United States a product covered by a claim of a patent without the permission of the patent owner. Further, you may be considered to infringe a patent if you import items into the United States that are made by a patented method, unless the item is materially changed by subsequent processes or becomes a trivial and nonessential component of another product. A person “infringes” a patent by practicing each element of a patent claim with respect to one of these acts. Further, actively encouraging others to infringe patents, or supplying or importing components of a patented invention, and related acts can also give rise to liability in certain cases."

None of this is about me. It's not my patent. I have nothing at stake here. As I've said before, my only interest is that I deal with design in my job. I take patent issues pretty seriously, and I think that some of the conversations here are walking a fine line when it comes to ethics. The point about this being an international forum is well taken, but as you can see from the information above, international does not necessarily mean imune.