On Mon, 23 Jan 2012 20:52:34 -0500, Dave wrote:

On Mon, 23 Jan 2012 14:18:38 -0500, wrote:
Let's just simplify it a bit. Anyone buying a NEW legal table saw IN
THE US would be forced to buy a SawStop.
There's always someone willing to sell non-compliant equipment off the
back of a truck, or to represent it as "used", or to bring
non-compliant equipment in from, say, Mexico. Or China.

Or Canada (such as General Tools which produces a quality table saw).
But, it's almost a foregone conclusion that Canadian insurance
companies would soon follow the same path of requirements.

One comment about General Tools though. My personal experience with
them is that they're pretty quick to incorporate new ideas and
technology with their products. I'm willing to wager they'd soon
invent their own type of safety technology, negating the need to
license a SawStop device. I think the rest of the table saw companies
in the US would be pretty quick to do the same.

It couldn't be any sort of electronic proximity sensing, or really any active
technology, or it would infringe on SawStop's patent. That patent is pretty
damned air-tight.