On Wed, 15 Dec 2004 23:17:40 -0500, GregP wrote:

On Wed, 15 Dec 2004 01:20:49 GMT, igor wrote:

On Tue, 14 Dec 2004 12:55:13 -0500, Hank Gillette
wrote:

I may be overly suspicious, but I think the saw manufacturers don't want
to put it on their saws because in effect they would be admitting that
their previous saws were unsafe.

Hank -- Assuming that the technology works, then I can see the saw
companies coming to this very conclusion (with a number of twists and turns
in the analysis) as a reason to not go that way.

A lawsuit may come from any direction. You can just as easily
make the argument that a saw company may be sued because
it *could* have installed Sawstop but didn't. So I don't believe
that fear of lawsuits was the primary rationale for turning down
Sawstop. I would bet on cost being the primary reason.


That is what I said later in my same post. Here it is:

"There can be an irony in the law about such things. If the sawstop
technology does work and it catches on, then if a company that does not
sell sawstop is sued for its "plain" TS, the plaintiff can say, "They could
have added this new technology but they refused." OTOH, if the same
company had licensed sawstop and then was sued, the fact that it had added
a sawstop line would not be admissible in court. YMMV, depending on your
state, but that irony exists in many states."

In my experience following such industry developments, in fact suits DO
come from both directions, yet companies generally only predict those
coming from the first direction -- i.e., that a "new safety technology"
will suggest that their existing products are defective. If they can kill
that new tech, then when a lawsuit comes they can say that the technology
was "unproven", "too costly", etc. But if they do not kill it -- i.e., if
their refusal to license it does not prevent it somehow coming to market
eventually -- then they really can end up being hit harder in court.
Please also note my initial caveat: "Assuming the technology works". --
Igor