Tremor-cancelling spoon for Parkinson's tremors
liftlabsdesign.com
Tremor-cancelling spoon for Parkinson's tremors
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Re: Tremor-cancelling spoon for Parkinson's tremors
#2Heard about this on All Things Considered this week: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/05/13/310399325/a-spoon...
Re: Tremor-cancelling spoon for Parkinson's tremors
#3Let's entertain the notion, prevalent here, that this idea itself (like all ideas themselves) is worth absolutely nothing, and that any one of the teams in the world who have access to gyroscopes, servos, and microchips, should have the right to reproduce this hack at unit cost and drive these guys out of business. Its cost is listed at $295.00[1] and this is their only product. It's huge compared to what the best facilities and teams in the world can produce to the same specifications, relatively unaesthetic as a utensil in its present form as compared to what a better-funded team can produce in a matter of weeks, and is clearly first-generation. They have no brand in the medical space. It is an eating utensil, yet it is not waterproof.
It is, however, patented.[2] This single fact allows this company (in its present form) to exist, to have done its research, to have raised its investment, and to bring their prototype in the form we currently see to market, at the price that it is currently listed at.
But patents are "wrong" and "stifle innovation".
Granted it's pretty obvious that this makes a huge difference in people's lives. So perhaps we should leaven our desire that their margin disappear, with hoping that more teams are somehow magically and irrationally in a position to do the world's R&D before losing their shirts as their margins disappear from under them. Having seen the size of this thing, the fact that it's not waterproof, the lack of an existing trusted brand-name behind the product, and a lack of any distribution except their web site (see their FAQ) shows that there is no way that is the best that any team in the world can build now that they've seen how it's done. Therefore, lacking protection, this team would no longer be competitive in a short number of weeks/months.
We can, however, agree that it is good that this has been made. So, how shall we reconcile this? Well, perhaps we should simply hope that funding, such as they have raised, would magically continue to be available even without any any margins that are guaranteed in the results (should they succeed in embodying their claims), which would allow the investors to recoup their investment. In short, we need investors to be crazy enough to keep funding innovations such as this one, while we remove the protections that would justify that craziness. Basically, we would have to hope that investors never catch on.
This is crucial for our purposes, as otherwise ideas such as this would not exist. Someone could have had this idea in 1999 or 1989. But without the investment, it might have stayed at the "worth-nothing" idea stage, rather than what we might call the "worth-nothing-but-has-now-actually-beend-developed-and-actually-been-built-and-proven-and-it's-no-longer-a-pipe-dream" worth-nothing stage. Which the rest of us deserve to access for free without investing anything.
There is an analogy to be made here with Tesla, who died nearly penniless: his meager earnings had come from his patent royalties. Imagine if we had the ability to rewrite history and take even this away from him, along with the food from his stomach and equipment from his labs, so that Edison and the rest of the world's teams would have full access to all of his inventions, working or impractical, without any protection. Imagine what progress that would have led to.
In summary:
1- ideas like this deserve no patent protection
2- teams should prove incredibly speculative techniques such as this for free and with no compensation or protection
3- investors should continue to invest in such ideas forever, even after it becomes abundantly clear that there is no way to recoup the investment in such a fledgling idea.;
Just kidding!! Phew. I hope we can all agree how ridiculous the above position would be. It's great that these guys brought their patented, high-margin product to the world. All this could have been done in 1984 - 40 years ago - if someone had had the 'wortheless' idea then -- and we would all have access to it today.
It took a team's phenomenal genius and dedication today to bring this to market, and the whole world will have it soon - unlike any of the Idea Sunday ideas that have no such protection, were never fully developed, and for which the entire program was crapped.
Here's to sane patents and to the progress they bring!
[1] http://store.liftlabsdesign.com/ $ 295.00. Note that my estimated margin at this price: (for copycat) 98.64% margins - ex assumed "worthless" idea - assuming a COGS at scale of $4, which is enough for several batteries, gyroscopes, microchips, cases, what have you. If we assume a $20 cost of goods that margin shrinks to 93.22% gross profit, again excluding the idea (which we assume is "worthless") or its development (which we assume the world should have access to for free, now that they've proven it.)
[2] http://www.cnet.com/news/smart-spoon-helps-stabilize-parkins...
Re: Tremor-cancelling spoon for Parkinson's tremors
#4Let's entertain the notion, prevalent here, that this idea itself (like all ideas themselves) is worth absolutely nothing, and that any one of the teams in the world who have access to gyroscopes, servos, and microchips, should have the right to reproduce this hack at unit cost and drive these guys out of business. Its cost is listed at $295.00[1] and this is their only product. It's huge compared to what the best fa…
I didn't downvote you despite my almost reflexive tendency to downvote posts bitching about being downvoted.
That said, I was strongly inclined to ding you for the sarcasm. Any point you might have been trying to make is obscured by the cloud of superiority and smugness your tone radiates, and, personally, I find that both off-putting and un-constructive. You could most assuredly use this invention as a means of starting a discussion about crap patents — a position with which I probably even agree in this instance — without burying your point beneath your invective.
Re: Tremor-cancelling spoon for Parkinson's tremors
#5My grandfather has Parkinson's. My dad has slightly noticeable hand tremors - no diagnosis at this point. I haven't read up on the likelihood that I'll get it, but I assume that I'm at high risk.
That said, this looks pretty neat and seems like basically a spoon version of Canon AF lenses. Will definitely look into these for my grandpa :)
Re: Tremor-cancelling spoon for Parkinson's tremors
#6I think some will remember the news story that Sergey Brin has the Parkinson's mutation. He is keen to fund technologies that makes progress in this field. That would indeed be welcome. Diagnosing Parkinson's with confidence with a specific authoritative test is no easy task. For my dad, the doctors cannot decide if it is essential tremor or Parkinson's.
I recall a post on HN which showed that our vocal signals have enough information to help wwith such diagnosis. Voice as carried by phone's now dont have the spectral resolution for this. However it might have enough bandwidth if voice is coded for that purpose. Seems like a worthy problem to take a stab at.
I think the corresponding NPR story https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7752627 was posted a few days ago but did not make the front page. So I am glad this made it.
Re: Tremor-cancelling spoon for Parkinson's tremors
#7Let's entertain the notion, prevalent here, that this idea itself (like all ideas themselves) is worth absolutely nothing, and that any one of the teams in the world who have access to gyroscopes, servos, and microchips, should have the right to reproduce this hack at unit cost and drive these guys out of business. Its cost is listed at $295.00[1] and this is their only product. It's huge compared to what the best fa…
I suspect if you tried to copy their idea it'll take you as much time as it took them if you want to match their algorithms. Meanwhile they're earning money and popularity because they were the first to market.
You might even find a better algorithm or at least match theirs, which adds another competitor to the market. In the end everyone (especially the consumer) wins.
Not a very good defense of patents to be honest.
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Also, this is not an instance of crap patents (rounded corners anyone?) which are the controversial ones. If I can copy your invention without any effort just by looking at it... is it even worth to grant the patent?
Patents are a means to encourage companies to share trade secrets, not a tool to turn them into monopolies. If your trade secret is not secret, why would the people (remember the governments, i.e. the people, are the ones granting patents) grant you any privilege so you would disclose what is already public and/or obvious?
OTOH, it's in the people's interests that Lift Labs share their data (which algorithms they tried, their performance, etc.) so a patent makes sense in this case. Patenting rounded corners? Not so much.
Re: Tremor-cancelling spoon for Parkinson's tremors
#8This is interesting, but IMHO, will not be as useful in most cases of Parkinson's disease.
1) Parkinsonian tremor is typically at rest or with distraction. When you actually engage in purposeful action, such as using a spoon, the tremor usually dampens or goes away.
2) The main problem in Parkinson's is actually "bradykinesia" or slowness of movement. A more accurate term, in my opinion, is slowness of motor planning, that is, the brain systems cannot process the information require to, and then generate, a plan of movement for the limbs fast enough. The spoon won't fix that.
3) Parkinsonian and other forms of tremor do have relatively safe and effective treatments in medications or deep brain stimulation implantation.
My thoughts are - this spoon, if it works and isn't a mechanical nightmare, would be useful in a limited subset of cases where the tremor resembles another condition known as essential tremor, where the tremor instead is an intention or action tremor, where purposeful activity amplifies the tremor. Even so, these would only be in those patients who cannot get deep brain stimulation surgery for some reason. The reason being that DBS, while brain surgery, once done, is the more elegant solution. I.e. your tremor goes away, rather than requiring a superficial "hack" like this spoon.
Re: Tremor-cancelling spoon for Parkinson's tremors
#9Let's entertain the notion, prevalent here, that this idea itself (like all ideas themselves) is worth absolutely nothing, and that any one of the teams in the world who have access to gyroscopes, servos, and microchips, should have the right to reproduce this hack at unit cost and drive these guys out of business. Its cost is listed at $295.00[1] and this is their only product. It's huge compared to what the best fa…
The problem is that your sarcastic position sounds pretty good to me.
The product is naturally high margin because there is a small, niche market. The first mover has a massive advantage, if they do a good enough job. It's unlikely that a copycat competitor would challenge someone in a good position, unless they could provide something cheaper or better.
Patents don't change this, but they do allow the patent holder to do a poor job, that doesn't fully reach people who need this product, and allows them to stifle competition who might be able to develop the idea further.
Re: Tremor-cancelling spoon for Parkinson's tremors
#10This is interesting, but IMHO, will not be as useful in most cases of Parkinson's disease. 1) Parkinsonian tremor is typically at rest or with distraction. When you actually engage in purposeful action, such as using a spoon, the tremor usually dampens or goes away. 2) The main problem in Parkinson's is actually "bradykinesia" or slowness of movement. A more accurate term, in my opinion, is slowness of motor planning…
My father being an ET sufferer who has had a useless DBS device implanted that he now leaves disabled at all times, I concur with your assessment.