On Sun, 29 Jan 2012 00:27:09 -0500, wrote:

On Sat, 28 Jan 2012 20:36:54 -0500, "Mike Marlow"
wrote:

Dave wrote:
On Sat, 28 Jan 2012 20:01:58 -0500, "
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.

Maybe not, but the drive to save money is pretty universal. I imagine
most saw builders are working on the safety issue as we speak. I agree
it's difficult to find a competing technology or we'd have seen it by
now. Doesn't matter, I believe it's just a matter of time.

I can imagine some type of beam of light that recognizes tissue and
disengages the saw when that beam is broken. Something will appear, I
have no doubt.

All of the table saw manufacturers are indeed working on an competing
solution. I don't recall where I saw it but you could probably find
documentation of that fact with a google search. I don't know if it is the
legal issues of patent infringement, or what is hold them up, but they are
not sitting back and doing nothing. It remains to be seen whether or not
Gass' patent (with all of its restrictions) will stand up under court
scrutiny.
It is my beleif that the patent protection given products like this
is too wide and comprehensive.

The evil drones sucked up over seventy five patents on this saw
mechanism. THAT should never been allowed to happen.



Whether the courts will come to the
same conclusion is another question - and how long it will take them,
still another. By the time it is all said and done, it might be
cheaper to pay the guys fot their licence, fai business practices be
damned. - and end up NOT having an even better product on the market.

No, NEVER make crime pay. What ****es me off most is that they A)
Pretended that they wanted to save fingers.
B) Pretended that it was "for the children".
and
C) Went behind our backs to the regulators to get it forced down our
throats when nobody wanted to pay their outrageous fees for a product
which would have been a sure sell to go onto every saw worldwide in
under a year.

when they could have simply asked mfgrs for a nominal fee plus a buck
or two royalty on each mechanism and all partners involved would have
been rolling in millions by now with more coming in for decades. Are
these guys just greedy effers? You tell me.

--
The most decisive actions of our life - I mean those that are most
likely to decide the whole course of our future - are, more often
than not, unconsidered.
-- Andre Gide