For those of us that think Lawyers should find something else to do…
http://www.strategypage.com/dls/articles/2005230.asp
Intellectual Property is rapidly becoming a new swear word.
Mark Gosdin
So now we just have to wait until EMD and GE start charging royalties along with all the railroads whose paint schemes are on the locos…great…[:(]
Maybe the solution is to put Russian military symbols on the planes. After all, the Russians made an exact copy of the Boeing B-29 Super Fortress when one these planes made an emergency landing in Siberia during WWII. Could Boeing demand a royalty on this Russian Copy? Once the modeler buys the kit, what’s to stop him from replacing the Russian insignias with USAF insignias?
On Overland Models latest ad, I noted that the new EMD & GE demonstrators were listed as licensed.
Rick
Greed is such a shame in corporate America. I remember when 10% profit for a year was considered acceptable. Now I see multiple earning forcast of 40%-50% operating profit in a lot of corporations. (I guess it’s all in the name of increasing stock value for the fat cats up top that own a ton of stock.)
In my humble opinion, licensing is fine. But it should be a token cost. Maybe $.02/dollar. This would defray cost of approving manufactured products by the licensee. After all, you wouldn’t want a company marketing a C&O 777 Michael Jackson passenger jet when there was nothing absolutely close in real life would you? cringe
I guess we’ll all be modeling USRA designs.
Enjoy
Paul
What do you call 200 Intellectual Property Lawyers at the bottom of the sea?
A good start.
Hmmmmm. I don’t know how it is in the rest of the country, but here in Lubbock, Texas, the client decides whether or not to sue folks, not the lawyer.
Vssmith,
I love lawyer jokes as much as the next person, but there is one thing to keep in mind. You ever watch those shows on TV where a person was wrongly convicted of a crime? I’m pretty sure in most of those cases it is lawyers working hard to ensure justice is served.
A corporation’s legal department is there in support of the accounting and administrative staff. It is the CEOs of the firms that make the decision to seek intellectual property right compensation, not the lawyers.
Wayne
Wayne,
Thanks 
Dave
I was looking at some diecast airplanes in ToysRUs the other day. Noticed a statement about licensed by Boeing on the box. Strange theplanes were, a British bomber, 2 British fighters, and a Ford trimotor.
I am glad I built the models a long time ago. They cannot increase the prices on those.
They can stick the … ahh never mind.
)
If you know of any corporation that made 40% last year, could you let me know? I’d love to put some money into it. Greed, economic growth, and cheap imports have improved the quality of model railroading products out of all recognition in my lifetime - so I’m going to hang onto the baby for right now. I’m planning on growth in my 401K to allow me to retire once the Boomers have used up all the Social Security money!
Has anything other than greed ever driven the industry? The Octopus was written about the SP, after all…
Does anyone have an insider’s understanding of how UP made this decision? I’d be surprised if the licensing revenues added up to the revenue of a single carload of freight. There must have been another reason.
best regards,
rrippergrr,
An interesting point you bring up about the amount of licencing not being very much and what process was used to come to the decision re: licensing. I’ve seen companies believing a $1000 fee for something or the other as ridiculous and spend $10,000 to fight it. I’ve seen companies upset by an inventory that showed $2,000 in unaccounted for materials (approximately 1 percent of total material) spend $1000 in overtime to have their folks reinventory only to have the same result and then throw away twice as much on unneeded software.
I guess it comes down to the human element.
Now I have seen it all. Being a military person, I shouldn’t be surprised, but I am. I guess greed can rear it’s ugly head anywhere.
Gold Digging Vultures,
Myles Standish is turning in his grave
A new business of mine involves scale models of the product of a major retailer. An inquiry I made regarding use of their company name in connection with my product returned a gracious letter from the Senior Counsel of their intellectual property management department offering no objection to my intended use of their name and wishing me the best of luck with my project.
I submit this to offer a different slant in this unfortunately ill-titled thread.
Wayne
OK< basic idea here. Wern’t those military vechicals developed and paid for by the US military? And by extension by us, the tax payer? SO the striker is being treated as intelcual propery, but since You and I paid for it to be developed and build shouldn’t it be OUR property? Lawyers.
Bill
Wayne,
That is good to know. This retailer might have determined that your product is a good one - not likely to induce the public into thinking bad things about the retailer and realizes that the goodwill (and free advertising) might be worth more than any licensing fee. I think it was a good move to contact them - get the communication going so there was no surprises or illwill either way. Who knows - perhaps down the road you may receive free assistance from them. In a way you did receive a license from them - one with out a fee. I beleive that several years ago Chessie did the same with their logo. All they wanted was for model manufacturers to send them a sample of what was being produced. If it was of good quality Chessie would give license for free. I may be remembering it wrong, but that’s how I remember reading it in MRR.
Good luck in your venture!!
Bill,
I think it depends on what vehicle is being talked about. Many vehicles (the Jeep and M1 tank comes to mind and I believe a large number of aircraft also) were actually developed by the manufacturers using their own money in an attempt to win a contract.
Perhaps there is a solution that would cost the model manufacturer a few cents while at the same time giving the manufacturer of the real thing advertising and good will. For an example - let’s take a B-17 model. Instead of a licensing fee, how 'bout the model manufacturer agrees to print and include in the box a “propaganda sheet” submitted by Boeing. This sheet could describe the massive effort of Boeing during WWII to ensure the U.S. and its allies received the equipment needed for the war effort. The sheet could also describe the various technological breakthroughs made by Boeing, give the name of the designers, give credit to subcontractors and, more importantly for Boeing, describe Boeing’s continued successes in the area of airplane design and manufacture. The same could be done for Chrysler with regards to the M1A1 tank , EMD with regards to a SD90 model (“EMD set the pace for diesel-electric engines in the 50’s and today continues this tradition with blah blah blah - EMD has shown its concern for safety, not only of railroad personnel but the public at large by using the following innovative safety features blah blah blah.”) and CSX with anything lettered for it “CSX traces its lineage back to . . . today CSX is the ___ largest rail system in the country, moving ___ tons of freight every year. CSX is committed to safety as shown by its instituting blah blah blah.”)
Does anyone think this would work?