Stealing another man's ideas with a Patent to make it "Legal".... Read on...

General Discussion
1

A certain company out there (and you know who you are) has applied for a patent on Paul’s design, which if approved, could put ALL OF US WHO BUILD HOLLOW WOOD SURFBOARDS in jeopardy of infringing on THEIR patent.

All of you guys building hollow wood surfboards on this forum can agree with me or hem-and-haw all you want about how you got your idea for the “NEW” hollow wood surfboard designs and methods of construction from Tom Blake, but we ALL know that PAUL JENSON is the one who should LEGALLY OWN THE RIGHTS TO THIS PATENT IF ANYONE SHOULD OWN IT!

THIS IS A CALL ON INTEGRITY. I WOULD BE SATISFIED IF THEY EITHER WITHDREW THEIR PATENT OR AT LEAST CUT PAUL IN ON IT TO SHARE IN THE RIGHTS. ANYONE CAN HIRE A LITTLE LAWYER BUDDY AND WORDSMITH THEIR WAY INTO STEALING SOMEONE ELSE’S IDEA, BUT THEY CAN’T WIN THE HEART OF THIS SURFER AND BOARD BUILDER. I WILL NEVER OWN ONE OF THEIR BOARDS, SIMPLY BECAUSE OF THE WAY THEY WENT ABOUT APPLYING FOR A PATENT ON ANOTHER PERSON’S GENIOUS IDEA (PAUL JENSON’s).

Now, being a board builder, I know how each of us “Borrows” ideas, templates, designs, theory, etc. from those who came before us. But those of us with half-an-ounce of character or integrity will give credit where credit is due, instead of changing it by a degree of 10%, just to make it “legally ours” and throwing our own logo on it.

We invent our own things and those are the things we can claim as “our own”. I mean, how does one feel when he traces out a Dick Brewer curve onto a fresh blank, and then goes and throw’s his logo on it and tells everyone “Oh, that’s my NEW shape! Check it out!”??? Pretty good? I hope not! Because that curve was Dick Brewers’!!! I don’t care if so-and-so changed it 10% in some way and thinks that it is now “his”. That’s stealing! In some countries, that is punishable by getting your hand cut off. I’d like to see someone shape a board with no hands (even though I’m sure it has probably been done, and maybe even done well).

Seriously… How many of us even have enough money to go out and Patent our ideas? If I had enough money to patent half of the ideas I have come up with, I would not be making $40,000 a year as an underpaid educator, trying to start up my own business on the side so I can pay the rent, buy diapers, and not make my wife have to leave our kids to go back to work. I make boards for the love of the craft, and I’m sure that is why most of us do what we do.

However, we all know that there is always a flip side, like the flip side of people involved in this sport, lifestyle and craft because of the money they can make off of other people interested in our sport, lifestyle and craft. It is those people who capitalize on a good thing and make it lose its soul. As far as I am concerned, surfing started as a soulful, aloha, mahalo, welcome-to-the-greatest-feeling-known-to-man kind of thing, and it is becoming so far removed from that aloha-soul thing, that some people just miss the whole “why we surf” idea completely.

I know Paul wouldn’t get all worked up about this and post about it, because of his charater. I never personally met Paul, so I can’t say that I know him. But he was nice enough to send me his CD-ROM and several Fin Templates and helped me learn basically everything I know about building Hollow Wood Surfboards. He was a class act. He stuck to his word. He mailed me the “Trade Secrets” the day that he received my request. He was enough of a stand-up guy, that he shared with me (and everyone else out there who has studied his work) the secrets of his trade, and all of the hard work he suffered through with the R&D invloved in coming up with his own modern method that he modified from Tom Blake’s Method. Keep in mind, that Paul was honest enough to make it clear that he got the idea from Blake. He didn’t try to patent it or go out there and tell the world that he “invented” this method. He probably assumed that everyone else would be man enough to acknowledge that HIS WORK WAS AND IS HIS WORK. He probably never even thought that some devious little rat with some money and a bunch of other ripped off surfboard building ideas, designs, and techiques would try to rip off his idea as well and call it “his” own (like changing the word “stringer” to “Spine”… or seeing Dan Hess reorient the ribs to a certain angle, then note this in the patent application so that anyone who puts any rib anywhere inside the board is infringing on the patent… and I digress.)

I could care less about them owning this patent. I will continue to use Paul’s and Grain’s methods to build boards and if I ever sell one, I will be sure to give credit where credit is due, and this company (who’s name I am being careful not to mention for fear of a lawsuit that I cannot afford) can rest assure that it won’t be them getting the credit for it. And what are they Patenting this for? So they can take the rest of us Hollow Wood Board builders to court to push their “Patent Rights” around? Heck, I don’t even make enough money making surfboards to pay the parking ticket in the parking lot outside of the courtroom! I do it for my love of surfing and building surfcraft. It has never been about the money for me. It has always been about the ride and the feeling I get from the time I step into the water to the time I get out and into my car to drive home… that feeling is payment enough… and that feeling is why Paul Jensen passed his knowledge and creativity on to US. It was NEVER about MONEY or GREED.

Paul posted his site for the simple love of his craft and wanting to share it with others – to TEACH others HOW TO BUILD A HOLLOW WOOD SURFBOARD. Read his site. It goes way back even before the crap with Gallardo Surf in October of 2005. Paul was building boards way before the whole Grain Surfboards thing becoming globally known, even before all the other Hollow Wood Board Builders out there (including myself) who have seen what paul has done and applied it to their own boards.

Great stuff has developed from Blake’s and Paul’s concepts, like Rich Blundel designing and inventing a new way to do rails But even the strip-and-feather method was borrowed from and modified from prior invented methods involving boats, canoe’s, and kayaks, from what I have seen and researched. Yet, he came up with it for a surfboard, and it helped us cut some corners and opened up a new realm of rail building. I even saw one guy on the Grainsurf.com builders forum who came up with a “reverse” method to building a hollow board. Amazing!

No matter how you look at the designs, people, they still look like Blake’s, originally made modern by Paul… no matter how you cut it!

None of US are trying to PATENT this form of board building for our own greed!!!

I am blown away at the audacity that some people have to make a buck, but I am not surprised. I am ashamed to surf in the same water with people who can still live and breath the same air as me and then go home at night and get a good nights sleep knowing that someone else’s hard work bought the bed that they sleep in at night. Go ahead boyzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz… sleep away… I’ll be out at the next dawn patrol session catching endless barrels on my Jensen hollow-single-fin, and banking s-turns on my Jensen hollow-fish, or riding one of my own desings; sharing waves with the dolphins, and thanking God for the beautiful oportunity I have to even be able to paddle out and experience the feeling of surfing.

There… I think my point is clear. Take this post as you will, but remember why we are even building boards – to ride waves with; to enjoy the joy of surfing with our closest friends; to be alone with the dolphins during that earlly morning dawn patrol session; to have a go at something that once was FREE entertainment; the SPORT Of KINGS.

  • David Falkenau (There, I even used my real name… I have balls… and I will lay them out on the line. Get some sack, boyz… step up and be honest… it is the only way you are going to have any longevity with your customers in this industry as long as the heavies have… Duke…Tom Blake… Phil Edwards… Skip Frye… Jim Phillips… Paul Jensen… Jerry Ingham… Bill Thrailkill… John Mellor… and the list goes on… We even ride Roy’s ass all day long about this and that, but at least his shit is original! Ya know?)

I think I have said enough.

2

Actually,

Kook boxes have been around for like 90 years.

3

If you ask me the only thing they will be able to patent are their cute, techno names for well worn tech. “Lamn-X”? Carbon fiber, kevlar, honeycomb and epoxy. So what’s new? Definitely the work of marketing guys, not core surfboard makers.

After being “enlightened” by Bert I think anyone who is considering new construction technologies knows that the shapes need to be adapted to the new properties. So signing on Brewer and Walden, to me, is not necessarily a big stamp of approval, but rather a show of marketing savvy and hype. That is, unless Brewer worked through several dozen prototypes made with the “new” tech to figure things out…

4

It is unclear to me that Hydro-epoch’s main patent 6800006 has any relevance to

  1. A hollow surfboard with wood skins

  2. a hollow surfboard with principally transverse ribs (instead of axial)

It looks quite specific to upper and lower skins having a honeycomb material sandwich, using a stringer, and optionally having a piece of foam between the stringer and either the upper and lower deck.

The real kicker is that all claims reference deck and hull as “a laminate having outer and inner composite layers surrounding a deck intermediate core fabricated from a honeycomb material,”

Which means the patent largely doesn’t cover anything that does not use honeycomb laminated sandwich for the deck and the hull and also uses a longitudinal stringer over some length of the board. Like Paul Jensen’s or Tom Blake’s construction.

http://www.google.com/patents?id=7y0SAAAAEBAJ&dq=6800006

5

It does rub you the wrong way, but the bottom line is this: We are a country of laws. We have “legal” ways to protect ourselves from copy cats on most items. If someone is too lazy, too stupid, or too cloaked in personal integrity to apply for a patent themselves in today’s world then they unfortunately asked for it. Thats reality. Not lack of integrity.

There are those of us who certainly wouldn’t buy the stuff, but the nostalgic minded sheep called the surfing public does not care.

Blake and the rest had that opportunity.

6
Quote:

It looks quite specific to upper and lower skins having a honeycomb material sandwich, using a stringer, and optionally having a piece of foam between the stringer and either the upper and lower deck.

In 1973 we called that a “W.A.V.E. Hollow surfboard”…

Nels

7

https://swaylocks7stage.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/1024321_This%20shit%20alone%20proves%20that%20they%20copied%20Jensen%20and%20Grain.doc

9

Kawika,

All it proves is someone took the time and money to legally protect and idea. It does not matter that someone else thought it up first.

What happens when a patent runs out. Anyone can copy anything. It’s not wrong…it’s legal. When was the last time the world was on the honor system?

10

i dont really see where your coming from this time solo

are you being sarcastic?

the patent application is bullshit

applying for a patent is costly

so are you saying that poor people that have good ideas dont have the right to own there IP

just because they cant afford a patent

that shows to me how laughable and bullshit the American legal system is

11
Quote:

i dont really see where your coming from this time solo

are you being sarcastic?

the patent application is bullshit

applying for a patent is costly

so are you saying that poor people that have good ideas dont have the right to own there IP

just because they cant afford a patent

that shows to me how laughable and bullshit the American legal system is

I am being a bit saracastic. However…do we live in the real world or do we want to act like children and wish the world was the way we think it should be? If we want to protect our ideas we get a patent and even thats only for a limited time. Poor people that don’t want their ideas stolen need to find someone to put up the money or find a way to sell prior to the patent. I think there is some small protection for those that can prove they were making a living off something prior to it being patented. It’s not all cut and dry. How else would people be able to protect something other than a patent. Like I said…the honor system has never worked. Every shaper out there has ripped someone else. Look at the thruster…who you gonna pay? Velzy for doing the pig, Mccoy for the zap planshape or Simon for putting three fins on a Mccoy planshape? There is a delema.

The best I can tell the patent application is not bullshit if it goes through. It’s legal. Yes…in many ways the American legal system is bullshit. You get just as much justice as you can afford and not a penny more. It sucks, but it’s reality.

12

http://www.google.com/patents?id=7y0SAAAAEBAJ&dq=mehiel+peter

13

I don’t get it, I was told that one can’t patent an idea if it has been seen in public, so how can anyone patent Paul’s method, which has been in the public domain for years ?

Looking at that patent link Janklow I can’t see how it is a patent for Paul’s method, in fact it looks pretty easy to get around by making a few alterations, correct?

All of which leads me to believe that as usual, the patent is more about being able to put the magic ‘patented’ marketingword on advertising rather than actually protecting a method fro competitors

.

14

It looks a whole lot different to me, but maybe I just don’t know what I’m lookin at.

Also “honeycomb”

shrug

15

Number one criteria for a patent - Must be novel (that means never been done before)

Number two - Can’t have been selling it for more than a year.

16

what can be patented:

Q. What can be patented?

A. Utility patents protect inventions that are a novel, nonobvious, and useful:

  • Process
  • Machine
  • Article of manufacture
  • Composition of matter
  • Or an improvement of any of the above items. Most patents are for incremental improvements in known technology; the innovation is evolution rather than revolution.
Design patents are for the new ornamental design of an article of manufacture. One example is the look of an athletic shoe. All Star Wars characters were protected by design patents.
Plant patents provide patent protection for asexually reproduced any distinct and new variety of plant.

Meaning of Novel, Nonobvious, and Useful

  • New and Novel: For a United States patent the invention must never have been made public in any way, anywhere in the world, a year before the date on which an application for a patent is filed. In other countries, you have no one year grace period and require absolute novelty.
  • Original and Nonobvious: An invention involves an inventive step if, when compared with what is already known, it would not be obvious to someone with a good knowledge and experience of the subject, for example, if you just make cosmetic changes that is obvious.
  • Useful: This means that the invention must take the practical form of an apparatus or device, it has to do something.

from About

17
Quote:

All of which leads me to believe that as usual, the patent is more about being able to put the magic ‘patented’ marketingword on advertising rather than actually protecting a method fro competitors

From what I got from a quick reading I would say this patent application may not get granted, and I’d be comfortable betting money it wouldn’t stand up if challenged…or the much more likely scenario would be that the new patent owner would go to court to defend said patent and get his or her ass kicked. I suspect half the Swaylock’s fellowship can recall basic versions of the concept this patent application is trying to gain control of from many areas and over many years. Surfer Magazine even did an article in the July 1970 issue on various surfboard patents through the years long before foam (I remember because I shared the copy with a friend a couple of years ago).

Not commenting on this particular case: taking out a patent or copyright on basic ideas in use or on the work of others, getting it granted just because nobody else had done it, is one way for someone to force out other competition by legal means or to extort money from their work. Which is, of course, lacking honor.

Sometimes people think up and create something all on their own…only to discover others have come up with the same thing. This happens all the time in every field imaginable. Which is why people have to pay for “patent searches”, although with things going online now that may be much easier.

Nels

18

you can’t patent anything that is prior art. even if these people were to apply for a patent on this method of board construction, the simple fact that someone else did it before them negates their patent. no worries.

19

Good one nels. The big “if” is if it gets a patent that goes unchallenged. Then…the one with the most money usually wins.

20

Hey folks,

Interesting thread here. I’m not exactly sure who’s who in all of this stuff (with the exception of TW, PJ and GSB). But just to keep things straight, after (and only after) I left GSb and began to realize that I was being “completely erased” did I decide it might be prudent to patent my own intellectual property. So in Nov. 2006 I applied for and was granted a provisional patent (i.e. patent pending) for my “strip and feather” rail method only.

I was very careful not make any general claims about wood boards, or transverse or longitudinal frame members or skins, or anything like that. I focused very specifically only on the ideas that had truly originated in my tiny little head. And why not! I spent countless sleepless nights and frustrating days pulling my hair out trying to perfect it.

I knew about PJ’s methods and specifically went about to do things fundamentally different (i.e. with novelty). I think anyone who actually researches my method will see that it is honestly different than the way anyone else had come up with to date - and I refer specifically to the way the rails are stripped on and the top plank panels are feathered to account for varied board thickness and contours simultaneously. That was always the big challenge and even if in words the distinction is subtle, the jist is fundamentally different. Build a few boards and you’ll see what I mean. Feel free to chime in here Paul if you disagree.

I’m really only in this to 1) get people stoked on building and surfing their own boards 2) plant more trees than I (we all) use. If I were in it for the money I would have stayed at GSb (or I’d at least be marketing as vigorously as them - no thanks). Whatever! I guess what I’m saying is, the main reason I’m pursuing the patent is to legally protect what’s legally mine from folks who would try to profit from it without credit where credit is due. That’s all. In no way does my patent adventure impede on builders of HWS’s theoretically or legally. That would after all seem to be contrary to the reasons I do what I do. The spirit of the thing is to prevent unfair stealing of ideas and profiting. It’s not about keeping people from using the method, that’s always free and publicly available from the little T2S forum (which by the way has tons of fantastic and novel ideas submitted by the community that uses it and for which I am stoked).

Geese this was longer than I expected. Sorry.