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Ask HN: Why are e-ink note-taking devices so expensive compared to iPads?

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Re: Ask HN: Why are e-ink note-taking devices so expensive compared to iPads?

#231

Post by marcus_holmes »

Misdicorl wrote: post #230
zerocrates wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never quite gotten the problem with evergreening. The story is, a drug company seeing their patent expiration come up, makes some small improvement and patents that, getting them a new term. So far I'm following along. But the narrative is, this locks out generics somehow. The new patent can't cover the subject matter of the old patent, as its automatically prior art, so only the improvements are covered by the…

I think the missing step is likely the many millions dollars it takes to defend yourself in patent court. Even if you're likely to win, it brings a generic offering below profitability.

This. A patent is not protection against competitors copying details of your product. A patent is a ticket to an incredibly expensive court battle.

To a certain degree, it doesn't matter if your patent isn't completely valid, or doesn't completely match what your competitors are doing. The point is to have deeper pockets than them and be able to spend more on lawyers than them. As long as your patent lasts long enough in court to stop your competitors from doing whatever you don't want them to do, it has achieved its goal.

Patents are so broken.

(IANAL, just an MBA who's heard some war stories).

Re: Ask HN: Why are e-ink note-taking devices so expensive compared to iPads?

#232

Post by dragonsngoblins »

d3ckard wrote: post #36
pidg wrote: post #10

I own a reMarkable 2. There is certainly enough to justify the cost, if you are a prolific note-taker. Conversely, I find it hard to justify the cost of an iPad, becuase I already have a phone and several laptops. I can't see a situation where a tablet would be more useful to me, so I've never bought one. Turns out different people have different needs, and the e-ink note-taking market caters to that. Most people wou…

Let me help you - iPad is the ultimate content consumption device. It’s by far my favorite electronic device and by far the most used. I work on my computer, I communicate on my phone, but I relax on my iPad. Internet browsing, shopping, watching shorter videos (or even longer ones when cooking), sometimes playing games, reading books. Thanks for the recommendation for Remarkable 2, considering buying one for a while…

I really do not get this at all. I find browsing the internet on a touch screen so much worse than with a keyboard and mouse. Being able to just open a new tab and search for stuff is ever so slightly harder on a touchscreen

Re: Ask HN: Why are e-ink note-taking devices so expensive compared to iPads?

#233

Post by dmitrygr »

toyg wrote: post #72

Beyond patent issues, TBH I would not have a problem paying for a reMarkable this very day, if I could be 10000% sure that there wasn't some shitty SaaS service involved in using it at any stage. These days, whenever a new gadget comes up, my first reaction has become "I wonder how they try to screw you into a SaaS later".

I was worried about this too. Imagine my surprise (and pleasure) when the OOB wizard had a "not now" option for wifi config. "Auto-updates" were "off" by default, and did not nag me, "cloud sync" defaulted to "off" as well, and the device root ssh password was shown on the bottom of the about screen.

Re: Ask HN: Why are e-ink note-taking devices so expensive compared to iPads?

#234

Post by [deleted] »

m-p-3 wrote: post #77
throwaway4485we wrote: post #14

Throaway to not get sued. E-ink, the company, holds the patents of the pigment core tech that makes "paper-like" displays possible and strongarms the display manufacturers and the users of their displays to absolute silence. Any research project or startup that comes up with a better alternative technology gets bought out or buried by their lawyers ASAP. E-ink don't make the display themselves, they make the e-ink fi…

Seriously, I hope their patents expire ASAP. They're hampering the technological progress of e-paper devices with their iron grip on the technology.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Why are e-ink note-taking devices so expensive compared to iPads?

#235

Post by aidenn0 »

danaos wrote: post #119
throwaway4485we wrote: post #14

Throaway to not get sued. E-ink, the company, holds the patents of the pigment core tech that makes "paper-like" displays possible and strongarms the display manufacturers and the users of their displays to absolute silence. Any research project or startup that comes up with a better alternative technology gets bought out or buried by their lawyers ASAP. E-ink don't make the display themselves, they make the e-ink fi…

Have you heard of Clearink? [1] They are using a different technology which appears to be superior. One can hope they will be reaching market soon. https://clearinkdisplays.com/

The technology page makes me thing the viewing angle is going to be more narrow than e-ink; the shape of the surface and the difference in index of refraction when on and off is going to determine how well they can do on that metric, but the complete lack of any mention of viewing angle makes me think it's not great.

[edit]

https://youtu.be/zjJ2-cdhwMQ?t=219

It's B&W and much lower contrast than current gen e-paper, but viewing angle looks great (maybe 120 degrees confirmed from the video?). They definitely need a matte surface though; that glare was terrible.

Re: Ask HN: Why are e-ink note-taking devices so expensive compared to iPads?

#236

Post by NonEUCitizen »

m-p-3 wrote: post #77
throwaway4485we wrote: post #14

Throaway to not get sued. E-ink, the company, holds the patents of the pigment core tech that makes "paper-like" displays possible and strongarms the display manufacturers and the users of their displays to absolute silence. Any research project or startup that comes up with a better alternative technology gets bought out or buried by their lawyers ASAP. E-ink don't make the display themselves, they make the e-ink fi…

Seriously, I hope their patents expire ASAP. They're hampering the technological progress of e-paper devices with their iron grip on the technology.

What does hope have to do with the patent's expiration date? You can look up the patent and determine when it expires.

Re: Ask HN: Why are e-ink note-taking devices so expensive compared to iPads?

#237

Post by robinsoh »

throwaway4485we wrote: post #14

Throaway to not get sued. E-ink, the company, holds the patents of the pigment core tech that makes "paper-like" displays possible and strongarms the display manufacturers and the users of their displays to absolute silence. Any research project or startup that comes up with a better alternative technology gets bought out or buried by their lawyers ASAP. E-ink don't make the display themselves, they make the e-ink fi…

> E-ink, the company, holds the patents of the pigment core tech that makes "paper-like" displays possible and strongarms the display manufacturers and the users of their displays to absolute silence. Any research project or startup that comes up with a better alternative technology gets bought out or buried by their lawyers ASAP.

Wow, that is a very serious allegation. But I googled and googled and googled, and found not even one such lawsuit. I also see competing tech like Clearink. Could you show us proof that what you claimed about "buried by their lawyers" is actually occurring?

Re: Ask HN: Why are e-ink note-taking devices so expensive compared to iPads?

#238

Post by robinsoh »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #38
varjag wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Patents expire after 20 years.

Looking up their patents ( https://patents.justia.com/assignee/e-ink-corporation?page=3... ), looks like their earliest patents are from 1998, so those should be expired already. That said, there's 36 pages of patents that seem related, so I'm sure that newly made e-ink technology will be covered by the newer patents.

> Looking up their patents (https://patents.justia.com/assignee/e-ink-corporation?page=3...), looks like their earliest patents are from 1998, so those should be expired already.

everytime this topic of EInk comes up, people on HN seem to claim there's a patent thing. I ask the simple question of which patent is blocking, and I get lazy answers like patent thicket. To be frank, I suspect those who make that comment aren't actually directly involved in the industry. I've been to SID and other display conferences and the real problem is physics and also lack of funding. What I know is that EInk can't get to the lower cost pricepoint without solving the scale problem which means getting an order for millions of displays. They can't solve cheap large panels because that would require solving yield issues which again becomes a matter of scale. Startups show up but can't get the billion or so that's needed to get to scale. You can see this pattern repeated with companies like Mirasol. The real problem is that nobody wants to put millions into making displays when they could get higher ROI from putting it into another hot AI/ML or internet service company.

Re: Ask HN: Why are e-ink note-taking devices so expensive compared to iPads?

#239

Post by dfabulich »

throwaway4485we wrote: post #14

Throaway to not get sued. E-ink, the company, holds the patents of the pigment core tech that makes "paper-like" displays possible and strongarms the display manufacturers and the users of their displays to absolute silence. Any research project or startup that comes up with a better alternative technology gets bought out or buried by their lawyers ASAP. E-ink don't make the display themselves, they make the e-ink fi…

E-Ink's patents are only a symptom of the deeper problem.

Consider: why wasn't Panasonic able to capture all of the patents for LCD displays? If "patents" explained the problem, then why are high-resolution color screens so cheap?

IMO, the answer to this question is that there are simply more ways to implement color LCD displays than there are ways to implement e-paper displays (as far as we know).

Other firms could design electronic-paper displays, but they're all going to work basically the same as E-ink displays, so they'll run afoul of E-ink's patents.

FWIW, the LCD "tech tree" got wider after the early 1970s patents started expiring in the 1990s; that's when LCD prices started to fall. Maybe the same will happen to e-paper when E-ink's earliest patents start expiring, but it's no guarantee. As long as the tech tree remains narrow, E-ink could control the market for decades more yet.

Re: Ask HN: Why are e-ink note-taking devices so expensive compared to iPads?

#240

Post by ClumsyPilot »

mieses wrote: post #194
dodobirdlord wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could replace E-Ink in China , and maybe they already have. But China's disregard for IP protections doesn't mean that goods created in China that violate international IP agreements can be exported.

Boox exports to the US and violates GPL.

Many US companies violate GPL
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