41–50 of 160 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because professional engineers choose test equipment based on functionality , and color schemes fall pretty low on the list. (yeah, this may be hard to believe if you have a primarily software background)
Sparkfun isn't a site for professional engineers, it's a site for hobbiests. Professional engineers typically don't buy shoddy gear which can end up blowing their arm off.
[deleted]
Summary of events leading to this response: SparkFun has been selling a type of inexpensive digital multimeter since 2008. About two weeks ago, they were informed that a recent shipment of 2,000 units (a $30,000 value) was seized by customs due to a trademark owned by Fluke (granted 2003). Specifically, their units violate Fluke's branding (gray face, yellow border). The Chinese manufacturer won't take them back (pro…
I'm not sure if they have a patent on it right enough.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Facebook isn't the web. Its a siloed private service. A company the size and reputation of Fluke should have their very own website that they can put messages like that on. Otherwise, they're merely giving facebook revenue by having that many more pageview opportunities to show everybody ads.
You don't need to be logged in to view the post.
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.
"what an amazing and generous response from Fluke" Agree. And curious what the PR value will be vs. the cost of goods for Fluke (which is their cost, not the wholesale and/or selling price). Personally I think it's unfortunate that they needed, in this day and age of social media, to have to bogu on this situation and get out in front of this issue by doing this. Of course by what I say in the first paragaph it may v…
So then, nothing to be done about the needless destruction of the shipment of meters by customs? As Sparkfun said, Fluke could easily issue a temporary license to prevent that draconian waste. If they think those meters are actually going to dilute their brand (hint: they really aren't), then make the importation license require Sparkfun to rework the meters domestically before distributing them.
As Fluke said, they want customers to know that if a product appears to be a Fluke, then they can safely use it in a high-voltage environment. The implication is that no, they are not going to permit them to enter the US. It's very classy of them to make Sparkfun whole.
Also, does anyone have tips on how to get the smell out after accidentally using an overripe banana to "test" my breaker panel? I thought checking the color would be sufficiently safe :/
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Facebook isn't the web. Its a siloed private service. A company the size and reputation of Fluke should have their very own website that they can put messages like that on. Otherwise, they're merely giving facebook revenue by having that many more pageview opportunities to show everybody ads.
You don't need to be logged in to view the post.
...
In all seriousness, I know my opinion matters very little, but I just don't visit facebook for reasons.
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…
I think you mean trademark.
Fluke says: "It’s important to know that once we’ve filed for and received trademark protection, US Customs has the responsibility to determine what to stop at the border, or what to seize. In this case, we first learned of this issue from SparkFun’s blog."
This is only kinda correct. It's theoretically true. However, these particular items were stopped due to an ITC order, that resulted from action taken by Fluke (though not deliberately against sparkfun).
See http://www.usitc.gov/publications/337/pub4210.pdf
This is US ITC exclusion order 337-TA-588, which is referenced in the letter customs sent to sparkfun. This was another case where they complained about the color of some multimeters. Had this action not been taken, there is a zero percent chance customs would have done anything to sparkfun.
Sadly, it's not possible to tell what the items in this order looked like for sure , because although there are "full color photographs" attached as exhibits, for some reason they scanned it in black and white ;)
(The last part of the statement, about them not knowing, is almost certainly true)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Baby steps. You can't expect massive changes overnight in such a complex system. Fluke did a solid AND the trademark system is broken; both are news.
A nicer solution could have been: Fluke: "We'll swap your 2000 chinese multimeters with 2000 Fluke multimeters. We will send the non-fluke multimeters to under-funded universities in africa/asia/wherever."
If touching it can kill you, I wouldn't go anywhere near it with a 15 bucks meter. And for everything else, the sheer terribleness of these will soon annoy you into buying something usable.