KAM Industries is trying to bill one of the creators of JMRI, the open source software suite for model railroad control, decoder programming, etc., for over $200,000 in damages for distributing the free JMRI software. There’s a possibly biased overview of the issue at http://righttocreate.blogspot.com/2006/04/write-free-software-pay-203000-to.html , and copies of the legal correspondence at http://jmri.sourceforge.net/pp/k/index.html . This is getting a fair bit of play on technology/open source websites, but I haven’t seen a discussion of it in model railroading circles yet. From the little I’ve read on this, it seems to me that the lawsuit is a rather deplorable attempt by KAM Industries to squash an independently-written, free competitor.
[1] The evidence shows Bob Jacobson was doing his JMRI software as open-source long before KAM began his patent application.
[2] There is a second link further down in the COMMENTS from Bob Jacobson’s legal counsel on their preferred approach (to avoid flames) for anyone’s input at the blogspot called: “Model Railroading Patent Update.” The link is at…
http://righttocreate.blogspot.com/2006/04/model-railroading-patents-update.html
[3] Here’s the link to Linux Today where I first ran across the story the other day…
Well, one solution is to avoid like the purple plaque doing any business w/ KAM and anybody else (MTH?) that does business like this.
As I read the patent, it is not a patent which is enforceable. Since the last paragraph or two mentions that the patent covers nothing but the claims, KAM Industries is basically trying to patent any control method which uses multiplexed controllers. This is hogwash, since all he’s doing is taking well known prior art, e.g., computer multiplexing, asynchronous and synchronous communications, and real time control methods, applying it to model railroads, and claiming that he invented something. An invention has to be non-obvious.
Furthermore, since, as described in the patent, and as is well known, controlling model railroad engines is basically controlling small electric motors, there is voluminous prior art on that topic. I would be astounded if a realistic search of prior published art didn’t expose this patent for the bogus claim that it appears to be.
-Ed
While I certainly don’t agree with KAM on this one, be careful when comparing this to the MTH litigations. Based on my last observations the QSI suit has either been settled or is dead (and that was a countersuit not a lawsuit), the Lionel lawsuit had to do with stolen plans of model designs (not patent infringments), and the lawsuit with UP is, well, UP’s mess.
In a nutshell I can’t stand any of the lawsuits. Ultimately they only affect the consumer as the high price of legal fees and settlements gets passed on to us… [V]
Jeff
J,
A DCC vendor who visits the club I’m in also stated that the QSI litigation is “Kaputsky!”
Hopefully that’s the direction this one will head in as well.
I certainly hope that this will not be the beginning of a new trend in the model railroad electronics side… persons looking at software componenst or “chunks” of what has been an open standard and claiming that it was their personal or “intellectual” property. [B)][tdn]
Can you imagine if this kind of junk would have occured back in the early days of command control for HO and N, when good guys Kieth Guiterriez and Dr. Richard Kamn were working with industry to improve command control? They didn’t sue Lenz years later for using similar facets of command control. IMHO, these hardworking guys are still honored heroes in this hobby. Their hearts were in it for improving the hobby, not fattening their wallets. [;)][8D]
'Way back when Linn Westcott was publishing the very earliest TAT circuits in MR, some clown came out of the woodwork and claimed that he had patent rights to the resistor-capacitor time delay circuit used to provide momentum effects for model railroad controllers. At that time, the r-c time delay circuit had been in general use for at least half a century.
Other than the one letter, published in MR, and a rebuttal letter published a few months later, nothing was ever heard about that claim again. Westcott continued to publish upgrades of the TAT circuit, with no mention of patent rights or licensing requirements.
Chuck
Antonio,
My sentiments exactly.
Jeff
Well for one thing, all these lawsuits are a form of free publicity …
For example, doesn’t know who MTH is?
Once this all gets settled, everyone ought to know about JMRI and KAM Industries.
Only problem is, when the so-called wronged party is seen as assaulting an open standard, people tend to see it as someone trying to bully all the rest of us into having to buy their wares.
That’s why as a business person I would be leery of going after an open standard with guns-a-blazing. Many will simply view you as the ultimate example of capitalism at its worst.
Didn’t Thomas Edison make a bit of a name for himself by patenting inventions that may not have been his own?
Quite handy working in the patents office, though.
Jon
Sorry, I couldn’t help it.[:o)]
?
I’m sure I’ve been told, but I don’t remember what MTH stands for.
MTH = Mike’s Train House
Observation;
- If you can not market it, then CLAIM you invented it and start lawsuite to get noticed.
- The more you try to help out the general public with FREE anything some person will try and make you PAY for doing it free.
- If you GIVE something away and it WORKS you can gurantee a nobody will claim it was there Idea and there is another gorunds for a law suite.
- I just purchased a BLI Mike and the QSI deal was in instructions telling me that some of the functionas I paid for WHERE NOT ALLOWED thanks to MTH.
My lawyer is going to file a $100,000.00 suite agains MTH as an indirect in fringement on my rites to get the goods I purchased from BLI.
The result will be they will have to defend thmeselves and tell me to sue BLI for the product. The breif has been written to the effect that it was NOT BLI but MTH and their attempt at QSI that caused this whole thing.
This is the ONLY thing that we as the BYSTANDERS can do to dummies likes MTH and KAM.
My cost is $50.00 to file and there cost to defend should be a couple of thousand.
I was not going to rattle any sabers BUT they (MTH) did pick MY pocket on a purchase.
Ain’t this FUN!!!
OK, I give up what is a BLI, QSI and KAM. I do know what LHS and FUN are!
Hello Walter.
I can help a little:[:)][:D]
QSI: Quantam Sound In. … They manufacturer the sound systems used in BLI and some of the Proto 2000 locomotives.
BLI: Broadway Limited Imports.
Click on this link … http://www.broadway-limited.com
Claycts, ------------ are you serious are just joking?
Why would you sue MTH? Seems like the MTH vs. QSI suit sank underwater like the Bismark. IMHO, the best way MTH will get the message is through our wallets.
Yecch… what a mess. I think *** Cheney had the right idea: let’s fund hunting trips for lawyers with him…
Unfortunately, most patent attorneys and people working in the patent office have no technical knowledge and grant patent applications without knowing that the technology being patented has been open source for years and years. If they did, the MTH and KAM patent applications and lawsuits would go nowhere.
[(-D] That’s great.