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SparkFun: We Hear You

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Re: SparkFun: We Hear You

#131

Post by Jtsummers »

talklittle wrote: post #76
haptiK wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Explain to me why it's a shame to have used Facebook?

I thought it was a shame for a different reason. Given I'm far from an avid Facebook user these days, the UI led me to believe this whole thing was a statement being made by Facebook, until I got to the very end of the letter: "Signed, Fluke Corporation." Was very confused about Facebook talking so much about hardware.

So you didn't notice the big Fluke logo in the top right? (perhaps it's not present on mobile?)

Re: SparkFun: We Hear You

#132

Post by sp332 »

Jtsummers wrote: post #131
talklittle wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought it was a shame for a different reason. Given I'm far from an avid Facebook user these days, the UI led me to believe this whole thing was a statement being made by Facebook, until I got to the very end of the letter: "Signed, Fluke Corporation." Was very confused about Facebook talking so much about hardware.

So you didn't notice the big Fluke logo in the top right? (perhaps it's not present on mobile?)

I didn't notice until after you mentioned it. That said, at first I thought the letter was from SparkFun so maybe I'm not very awake today!

Re: SparkFun: We Hear You

#133

Post by sp332 »

facepalm wrote: post #121
haptiK wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Explain to me why it's a shame to have used Facebook?

For me it's a shame because I have blocked Facebook, so I can't see it. But isn't it always "Login-Walled", in that you can only see stuff as a registered Facebook user?

Any pages marked as "Public" are accessible without a login. As soon as you put any restrictions on the audience, it makes everyone log in to check them against the list.

Re: SparkFun: We Hear You

#134

Post by gvb »

smoyer wrote: post #128

You really have to wonder why a vendor of "precision test equipment" would want to protect a trademark of the word "fluke"[1]. Wouldn't you rather your measurements were "consistent"? [1] http://www.thefreedictionary.com/fluke - definition #3

The company name wasn't a fluke, John Fluke named it after himself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluke_Corporation

Re: SparkFun: We Hear You

#135

Post by RankingMember »

fnordfnordfnord wrote: post #21
thaumaturgy wrote: post #12

Wow, what an amazing and generous response from Fluke. I can't remember a better response from a company, ever, in a trademark / patent / copyright / licensing dispute. And it's all written in straightforward language without a lot of marketingese.

Jack Daniels does it with class too. http://brokenpianoforpresident.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/j...

Wow, now that's something you rarely see in legal correspondence: respectful, even-keeled explanation over "I'm going to hit you with this tersely-worded hammer if you don't comply" legalese.

Re: SparkFun: We Hear You

#136

Post by bunderbunder »

jaeysin wrote: post #75
EpicEng wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why in the world would/should Fluke give away ~$800,000 worth of product (that sparkfun would make a ton of money off of) because someone decided to violate their trademark and paid the price for it? We're talking about 2,000 vastly inferior multimeters here. You may or may not agree with the trademark being issued in the first place, but it was, and I don't blame fluke for wanting to protect their brand. They make a…

But they didn't violate their trademark, there is no use of the name Fluke or their trademark. "A trademark is a brand name. A trademark or service mark includes any word, name, symbol, device, or any combination, used or intended to be used to identify and distinguish the goods/services of one seller or provider from those of others, and to indicate the source of the goods/services. " http://www.uspto.gov/trademarks…

This would appear to be the specific trademark they violated: http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4809:7pu...

This is coming from the USPTO's website. If it's invalid because it only mentions Fluke's trade dress and not its name or logo, that'll probably be news to the folks running the USPTO. You might want to mention it to them.

Re: SparkFun: We Hear You

#137

Post by drdaeman »

noonespecial wrote: post #70
jzwinck wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poor people may not be able to buy expensive equipment. It may be that having worse equipment is better than none. We shouldn't always apply the same level of "if one person gets hurt it is unacceptable" protectionism to other societies.

I wish people would consider this more often. We seem to have an epidemic of "if we can't do it perfectly, we shouldn't do it at all" infecting many areas of American life at the moment. Unfortunately, this usually results very little perfect and a great deal of not doing anything.

Depends on particular niche.

For hardware supplies, yes, having a bad device is better than having none. For crypto software - no, it must be state-of-art or we're screwed.

Re: SparkFun: We Hear You

#138

Post by jacquesm »

jweather wrote: post #130
jacquesm wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm on the fence about how generous this is. Fluke was obviously headed for some bad PR, they were allowed to get a 'trade dress' protection for their not-so-distinctive design (I've seen yellow multimeters from long before I ever used a fluke, yellow is simply a good colour for a tool because it makes it stand out). Carlo Gavazzi (another manufacturer of measure and test gear) had a series of yellow meters with blac…

The only customer involved is Sparkfun, they were purchasing the meters for their own stock. Nobody had pre-ordered them. Not sure what SparkFun campaign you're talking about.

https://www.sparkfun.com/news/1428

They were out of stock, so presumably orders were taken and won't be filled, and now it will take even longer to fill those orders. Maybe some of those customers will even buy Fluke (unlikely, $20 vs $200 or so).

'their campaign': the alternative route, to seek redress, to get the colour 'yellow' narrowed down to the point where an orange DVM would be allowed to enter the United States without risking it being seized. It's a tool not a Louis Vuitton bag (I hope I spelled that right), and the colour scheme is not relevant. If it was unsafe or something like that then I could see the point.

Sparkfun did what they could, they're unable to meet this challenge head-on, this shipment (and possibly whatever else is in the pipeline) is lost for all the wrong reasons and Fluke gets to make out like they're the good guys. Pick your battles is good advice, and SparkFun has rightly decided this one isn't theirs but the grace is mostly on their side and significantly less on Fluke's.

Re: SparkFun: We Hear You

#139

Post by IgorPartola »

fnordfnordfnord wrote: post #21
thaumaturgy wrote: post #12

Wow, what an amazing and generous response from Fluke. I can't remember a better response from a company, ever, in a trademark / patent / copyright / licensing dispute. And it's all written in straightforward language without a lot of marketingese.

Jack Daniels does it with class too. http://brokenpianoforpresident.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/j...

That's fantastic. I bet you this cost everyone less money then litigation. The only way they could have made this better is if they sent the author a bottle too.

I have come to believe that there are contracts and there are intentions behind the contracts. A person or a company can sign a contract, and have no plans to fulfill it and at the same time a person or a company can fulfill a promise without signing any contract. While contracts are a necessary evil, the real question is what does the other party intend to do.

Re: SparkFun: We Hear You

#140

Post by pepon »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #12

Wow, what an amazing and generous response from Fluke. I can't remember a better response from a company, ever, in a trademark / patent / copyright / licensing dispute. And it's all written in straightforward language without a lot of marketingese.

Amazing?? Generous??

Still prohibited selling yellow multimeters?? Is that a joke??

I think there are many Fluke PR employees posting messages telling what a great company Fluke is for this response... IMHO, this patent is just ridiculous.

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