Patent and Copyright law to the point of abject stupidity
Fluke is a manufacturer of excellent electronic test equipment but they have overstepped the bounds of decency.
From the excellent electronics site
SparkFun:
Fluke, we love you but you're killing us
Part of SparkFun�s business model is to find really cool items that every hacker and DIY electronics person needs. A digital multimeter is one of those �must-haves.� We started sourcing a really great high-quality $15 multimeter back in 2008. This price-point enables countless beginners to get their feet wet in electronics.
Fast forward six years and many thousands of multimeters sold. On March 7th, we were notified by the Department of Homeland Security/US Customs and Border Protection that our latest shipment of 2,000 multimeters was being inspected.
Turns out that Fluke got a
trademark for the following:
digital multimeters and products with multimeter functionality that have a contrasting color combination of a dark-colored body or face and a contrasting yellow border, frame, molding, overlay, holster or perimeter.
From SparkFun:
Yellow is awfully broad: In my mind, multimeters have always been yellow. I�ve never had the opportunity to own a Fluke-branded DMM so I�m not sure where my brain picked up this association. I can respect trademarks and company branding and I respect Fluke�s reputation for high-quality multimeters. If Fluke wants to own a color I would expect the USPTO to require them to assign an exact color just like Tiffany�s did with Tiffany Blue. But allowing a company to trademark �yellow� seems broad.
Wicked burden on small business: Trademark law is heavily skewed towards large business. Small business does not have the resources to stay abreast of all trademarks for all the products they don�t carry. If you�re going to put the onus on the little guy to avoid infringing IP then you shouldn�t need an army of consultants or attorneys to find this information. We will lose $30,000 on this shipment. But the cost of the legal legwork and manpower to make sure we don�t violate a future color seems unreasonable and simply not feasible.
No recourse: Our multimeters are actually kind of orange, not Fluke yellow. The document from the Department of Homeland Security is matter of fact. Where is the opportunity for recourse? What is the appeals process? Because of a $150 per day warehousing fee we are forced to decide quickly with limited legal guidance and mounting penalty costs.
Decide between bad and worse: So we really only have two options, ship them back or have them destroyed. Having them destroyed costs $150 per hour with no indication of how much time it will take to destroy 2,000 units. Returning them has been ruled out by the manufacturer in China because the import taxes in China are so steep (yay free trade) that bringing them back into the country to have them modified would be more expensive than paying for the return shipping and taxes. Between bad and worse, we have to have them destroyed. Sorry Earth.
A message to Fluke: You�re cool! We like Fluke. We didn�t know about your trademark on yellow framed multimeters and we agree to change our colors. Perhaps we can be granted a 60-day license? There�s probably not enough time (the DMMs will be destroyed in a few days) but perhaps there�s a chance. We�d be happy to donate them to the cause of your choice.
Sheesh... It is not like they were trying to pass these off as Fluke-branded multimeters. Fluke needs to step up to the plate on this.
Posted by DaveH at March 19, 2014 12:41 PM