Rode Wireless Go II

Glenn Sanders, the president of Zaxcom, posted this in jwsoundgroup about an hour ago. It's the first bit of a longer post that gets into their patent and dispute with Lectro, but to keep focus on the RODE GO II:

"Zaxcom has reached out to Rode regarding the introduction of the Wireless Go II product and a potential license for our recording wireless patents. We have not had a response yet but are willing to begin a dialog to reach a deal that would be beneficial to both companies."
 
Jim Feeley said:
Glenn Sanders, the president of Zaxcom, posted this in jwsoundgroup about an hour ago. It's the first bit of a longer post that gets into their patent and dispute with Lectro, but to keep focus on the RODE GO II:

"Zaxcom has reached out to Rode regarding the introduction of the Wireless Go II product and a potential license for our recording wireless patents. We have not had a response yet but are willing to begin a dialog to reach a deal that would be beneficial to both companies."
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I can't see that worrying Rode.
 
I doubt Rode will bite. Their legal team must have researched this beforehand and they know they're on solid ground...
 
Jim Feeley said:
Glenn Sanders, the president of Zaxcom, posted this in jwsoundgroup about an hour ago. It's the first bit of a longer post that gets into their patent and dispute with Lectro, but to keep focus on the RODE GO II:

"Zaxcom has reached out to Rode regarding the introduction of the Wireless Go II product and a potential license for our recording wireless patents. We have not had a response yet but are willing to begin a dialog to reach a deal that would be beneficial to both companies."
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This could be FUN... I'll see you over at JW. Hope I've got some fresh popcorn.
 
Sounds like Zaxcom wants their cake and to eat it, too.

Today we are in the middle of an appeal to get back our original claims. While the IPR cases favored Zaxcom, the amended claims are not as ideal as they might limit our right to obtain a fair settlement from the court or arbiter.
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Lectro win their challenge over the original patent? Then Zaxcom amended their claim, and overturned that win. So, if they "get back" their "original claims", would that mean that their amended claims have to be tossed? Because that seems like that would hand the "win" back to Lectro. Or does Zaxcom get to keep and use all of their arguments?
 
Run&Gun said:
Sounds like Zaxcom wants their cake and to eat it, too.



Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Lectro win their challenge over the original patent? Then Zaxcom amended their claim, and overturned that win. So, if they "get back" their "original claims", would that mean that their amended claims have to be tossed? Because that seems like that would hand the "win" back to Lectro. Or does Zaxcom get to keep and use all of their arguments?
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Yes, and given this legal setback and the fact that Rode's sales are about ten times those of Zaxcom's I highly doubt they will go to the mat on this one.
 
Billable hours baby, billable hours. Lawyers for the win!

The whole thing about the PTAB finding Zaxcom's original claims invalid after being in existence and successfully defended for 10 years and then suddenly becoming invalid show what a pile of hot horse manure the whole patent business is.
 
Paul F said:
Billable hours baby, billable hours. Lawyers for the win!

The whole thing about the PTAB finding Zaxcom's original claims invalid after being in existence and successfully defended for 10 years and then suddenly becoming invalid show what a pile of hot horse manure the whole patent business is.
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Yep. I'm waiting to see if anyone calls Glenn out over on JW, but I'm not gonna hold my breath, as it seems kind of political over there with some bowed down to.
 
It's pretty clear that everyone in the production business, short of perhaps Zaxcom and their users, hopes that Zaxcom's patent claim is litigated into oblivion.
The way their claims have been substantiated is just short of a monopoly on certain functions that really shouldn't patentable. This whole thing smacks of Vitec/Litepanels
ridiculous assertion that they held the patent on all LED Photographic Devices. https://nofilmschool.com/2013/01/litepanels-wins-patent-case

The U.S. Patent System is obviously deeply flawed and stifles competition and innovation.
 
puredrifting said:
... The U.S. Patent System ... stifles competition.
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No question, that's a patent's purpose. "I got an idea and you can't have it." It is most certainly there to protect the one over the many. The patents I have are nothing but tripe written specifically to prevent competitors from doing something. I won't tell you what they are because they are so embarrassingly stupid, but effective in fending off competition.
 
Paul F said:
No question, that's a patent's purpose. "I got an idea and you can't have it." It is most certainly there to protect the one over the many. The patents I have are nothing but tripe written specifically to prevent competitors from doing something. I won't tell you what they are because they are so embarrassingly stupid, but effective in fending off competition.
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It was originally intended to support innovation. Meaning it gives companies the incentive to develop new products by allowing them an exclusive period of time to make back their R&D costs and make a profit before competitors are allowed to use it. Otherwise competitors would have an unfair advantage because they can offer the feature for less since they didn't need to spend the money to develop it.

Like everything people find ways to take advantage of the system, by writing overly broad patents and then extorting money from companies with similar ideas. This is the case here. Not sure if Zaxcom did this intentionally or once they and their lawyers saw the demand for recording while transmitting as a means of protecting from dropouts, they were all too happy to extort the wireless industry for trying offer this feature. I thought I remember reading their implementation was more sophisticate as it is doing real time checking for dropouts and substituting the missing packets. This is actually an old idea used in computer data transfer. Whether over Ethernet cable, usb, or wifi, you get lost data or small errors so there are redundant protocalls to insure that all the data sent is received.
 
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puredrifting said:
It's pretty clear that everyone in the production business, short of perhaps Zaxcom and their users, hopes that Zaxcom's patent claim is litigated into oblivion.
The way their claims have been substantiated is just short of a monopoly on certain functions that really shouldn't patentable. This whole thing smacks of Vitec/Litepanels
ridiculous assertion that they held the patent on all LED Photographic Devices. https://nofilmschool.com/2013/01/litepanels-wins-patent-case

The U.S. Patent System is obviously deeply flawed and stifles competition and innovation.
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I'd say it's only Zaxcom and their lawyers. I don't see how the patent being turned over would harm their user base in any way. Just from my observations over the last almost 2 1/2 decades, Lectrosonics has a much larger user base than Zaxcom, in the world of wireless(and SD in the mixer/recorder world). So I don't see this patent as generating more sales and demand for Zaxcom for something that they can provide that the competition can't. It has only been a drag on the industry.
 
Peter C. said:
It was originally intended to support innovation. Meaning it gives companies the incentive to develop new products by allowing them an exclusive period of time to make back their R&D costs and make a profit before competitors are allowed to use it. Otherwise competitors would have an unfair advantage because they can offer the feature for less since they didn't need to spend the money to develop it.
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Yes, exactly. And it's still here for that purpose. But as we see over time, it has distorted into absurd folly.

There are trolls that make a living with patents. They buy up old unwanted patents and spend their days looking to see who they can sue. These trolls sued the company I worked for. Because of this, I had to take a lot of time away from my work and comb through piles of old documentation to defend my employer from suits that alleged we used technology that we did not use.

Then there is my stupid 'inventions' that I have patents for (so proudly printed on metal plaques collecting dust in the attic), along with all the other stupid inventions that do nothing but stifle business and industry both small and large to the detriment of everyone but the lawyers billing hours.

Then, when you think, 'Ok, we have some abuse, but we still need to allow companies to invest millions and protect their intellectual property' along comes pharma bro. Some pharmaceutical company probably legitimately spent millions and years developing a drug and sold it at fair prices. Then pharma bro got hold of it and did what he did. So even with the original intent of patents, it can be abused.
 
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Oh man, I would be so proud if it were even close to the car periscope .... or maybe Mr. Microphone. ........

Hey! STOP THE PRESSES! That Mr. Microphone we were making fun of a while back .... it has:

- A microphone
- A transmitter
- A recorder in the tranmsitter!

Is that prior art????!!! Does that invalidate the Zaxcom patent????

https://www.amazon.com/MR-MICROPHON...&keywords=mr+microphone&qid=1614385952&sr=8-5

At this very moment I'll bet a hundred Lectrosonics lawyers are reading this post and are going to spend the weekend looking into this. And the billable hours go on.
 
Paul F said:
Oh man, I would be so proud if it were even close to the car periscope .... or maybe Mr. Microphone. ........

Hey! STOP THE PRESSES! That Mr. Microphone we were making fun of a while back .... it has:

- A microphone
- A transmitter
- A recorder in the tranmsitter!

Is that prior art????!!! Does that invalidate the Zaxcom patent????

https://www.amazon.com/MR-MICROPHON...&keywords=mr+microphone&qid=1614385952&sr=8-5

At this very moment I'll bet a hundred Lectrosonics lawyers are reading this post and are going to spend the weekend looking into this. And the billable hours go on.
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GUMP!!! You're a ******* Genius!!!
 
I had an idea for an invention about 10 years ago for a focus-assist device that you could put on your subject that would communicate its distance to the camera. I met with an experienced engineer I connected with on craigslist but he told me that it's really hard to enforce a patent and that all the money is from the manufacturing/sales and basically a larger company can tweak your patent, push out a product to a large market, and overwhelm you in court. So I gave up on the idea. A few years ago, I saw that exact type of product reviewed on nofilmschool, but as far as I know it hasn't made a huge splash, so maybe it's good I gave up on it. My only point being that sometimes patent law doesn't disrupt innovation. Sometimes the holes in protecting your ideas prevent innovation
 
Paul F said:
Oh man, I would be so proud if it were even close to the car periscope .... or maybe Mr. Microphone. ........

Hey! STOP THE PRESSES! That Mr. Microphone we were making fun of a while back .... it has:

- A microphone
- A transmitter
- A recorder in the tranmsitter!

Is that prior art????!!! Does that invalidate the Zaxcom patent????

https://www.amazon.com/MR-MICROPHON...&keywords=mr+microphone&qid=1614385952&sr=8-5

At this very moment I'll bet a hundred Lectrosonics lawyers are reading this post and are going to spend the weekend looking into this. And the billable hours go on.
Click to expand...

Mr. Microphone. Wasn't that on the Simpsons?
 
ahalpert said:
I had an idea for an invention about 10 years ago for a focus-assist device that you could put on your subject that would communicate its distance to the camera. I met with an experienced engineer I connected with on craigslist but he told me that it's really hard to enforce a patent and that all the money is from the manufacturing/sales and basically a larger company can tweak your patent, push out a product to a large market, and overwhelm you in court. ...
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Yep, that's exactly correct. One of the longest patent battles was for the intermittent windshield wiper invented by an individual, but taken by all the automobile manufacturers. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Kearns

Perhaps out of that comes the basis for the Zaxcom combination of elements being an invention. From the wiki:

"The legal argument that the auto industry posed in defense was that an invention is supposed to meet certain standards of originality and novelty ("flash of genius"). One of these is that it be "non-obvious". Ford claimed that the patent was invalid because Kearns's intermittent windshield wiper system had no new components (it used all "off-the-shelf" parts). Kearns noted that his invention was a novel and non-obvious combination of parts.[15][16] Kearns's position found unequivocal support in precedent from the U.S. Court of Appeals and from the Supreme Court of the United States:

"It is idle to say that combinations of old elements cannot be inventions; substantially every invention is for such a 'combination': that is to say, it consists of former elements in a new assemblage." (Hand., J.) (cited with approval in KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007))""
 
Paul F said:
Oh man, I would be so proud if it were even close to the car periscope .... or maybe Mr. Microphone. ........

Hey! STOP THE PRESSES! That Mr. Microphone we were making fun of a while back .... it has:

- A microphone
- A transmitter
- A recorder in the tranmsitter!

Is that prior art????!!! Does that invalidate the Zaxcom patent????

https://www.amazon.com/MR-MICROPHON...&keywords=mr+microphone&qid=1614385952&sr=8-5

At this very moment I'll bet a hundred Lectrosonics lawyers are reading this post and are going to spend the weekend looking into this. And the billable hours go on.
Click to expand...


how can you be so stupid? It is obvious the Zaxcom one is novel and patentalble it is in a dark non-reflective colour... the Mr Mocrophone one above is in a reflective silver/chrome so not the same thing at all..... :-)
I can argue that all day (did some one mention billable hours? :-) )
 
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