US Patent number 8,1672,791
 

I received great long-awaited news today - The Patent for my Slipperential Diff/Transmission will issue on April 24th.
US Patent number 8,1672,791
It has been over three years since I applied for the patent, along with 10s of thousands of dollars in fees, etc. but it is finally done. I am quite excited. :-)

Congrats Mike! I hope it was worth the effort and some Chinese shop doesn't simply continue copying your design...

Way to go Mike!

Fantastic news

Good for you.

My question is: are you going to enforce it?

I just had a lengthy meeting with my patent attorney yesterday. This topic just happened to come up (I even told him the story about you.)

ITC, stop them at the US border = $100,000 and it should be done in under 6 months. There is NO civil claim here, you only stop them at the border and keep it out of the US. Add that $100k to your R&D costs and prices.

Did you file for a 'Chinese patent'? lol, lamo, rof.

FYI: if you don't enforce it within 6 years, your patent becomes unenforceable.

Did you trademark 'Slipperential'?

PS: love the new intro on your site...integrity, integrity, integrity. I can tell you were pissed off when you wrote it.

Wow. Congrats Mike!

AWESOME!!! Congrats Mike! :party:

Technically, the term "Slipperential" is my trademark whether registered or not and is theoretically protected as such. Likewise, the Monster logo is similarly protected in theory.
There is no $100K in my budget, nor would a Chinese patent do me any good(is there even such a thing - China doesn't recognize patents I thought). Ideally, I license the Slipperential name and concept to larger entities (Losi, AE, Ofna, etc.). Having the actual Patent issued is the first necessary step, though.

Congratulations!!!!!!!!

Congrats!

Congratulations Mike!!

Hopefully this happens soon!

Congrats on the patent and thanks for your continued effort to advance the hobby.

Congrats???
 

Congrats, I guess??? I mean congats to you for accomplishing what you started out to do by acquiring the patent, but looking at this from an outside perspective this seems to be pretty much useless with all of the copyright issues that you and Robin have already gone through. It seems that the only way this actually pays off is if the products you are producing are themselves worth millions of $$$$$$$$$$. Protecting anything with a smaller value seems to be a futile effort at best. Plus the three years of waiting and the overall out of pocket cost just seem incredibly rediculous.

I'm happy to see that you finally made it through the total process, but sorry to see that it has not really accomplished what you intended from the start, which was to keep anyone else from making copies of your fantastic design. I have not really been looking around since that chinese clone showed up a while back, but I have not seen them around much since. Even so considering the quality of that copy as the saying goes you get what you pay for, right? Its just like Robin's designs over on UE. Even though there have been a few copies made they were still nowhere near the same quality making them a poor substitute. The amount of loss they may have cost just isnt worth getting all worked up over IMHO. Just keep making good parts and the real hobbiests will always come back for more. This is the part that we have tried to convey to Robin. If he makes the parts we will buy them. Not some cheap copycats junk. There is some loyalty with this hobby. Between what RCM, UE, & HCR put out these three have been the best in qualty, and the rest have been smoke and mirrors. Keep it up guys. USA, USA, USA, USA.

Not so sure about unregistered trademarks anymore...

Yes, there is such a thing as a Chinese patent. According to my patent attorney anyway. China does not respect non-Chinese patents, but there is such a thing as a Chinese patent.
Yea, I laughed too. He says it's better than nothing. I laughed again. Good luck getting a fair shake in China.
:lol:
I hear ya Jerry, but sadly, people like you are a very small minority. The majority is driven by price and bling bling.
I only hope Mike does get some business' who license this from him and there's a payoff in the long run.
Far as I'm concerned though, RC is dead for the US manufacturer. Might be able to eek out a living, but China will make all the profits from their hard work and inspiration.

Best of luck Mike and again, congratulations on the patent. At least they can never take that away from you.