Patents Threaten To Silence A Little Girl, Literally

[Rob Lister]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

The market is restricted because of the price. The price is caused by the lack of competition.

The primary restriction on the market is the low number of people requiring or desiring this technology. To recoup sunk costs, the price per-unit is necessarily higher. The sweet-spot on the price/revenue curve is all that really matters. If that spot is below cost, all may be lost.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

Lack of competition can also be the result of the market being so small that nobody sees a realistic chance that money can be made.

Or the fact that competition is being sued.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

Or the fact that competition is being sued.

But that's the purpose of patents: to prevent one company spending a shed-load of money on R&D, and someone else coming along and duplicating the product without the overhead of the R&D. Perhaps that's what's happened here, or perhaps it isn't - that's for the court to decide - but the product almost certainly wouldn't exist at all were it not for the protection offered by patents.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by HarryT

But that's the purpose of patents: to prevent one company spending a shed-load of money on R&D, and someone else coming along and duplicating the product without the overhead of the R&D. Perhaps that's what's happened here, or perhaps it isn't - that's for the court to decide - but the product almost certainly wouldn't exist at all were it not for the protection offered by patents.

There is no evidence of a shed-load of money being spent on R&D for the software.

[Daithi]

I'm a software developer and I'm in favor of reasonable patent and copyright laws. I can tell you that I wouldn't design this software without them. Why would I invest my time and resources into developing something that anyone could then ripoff?

The original makers of this product invested their time and resources before the iPad even existed. Now someone rips off the work they did, and we are supposed to feel sorry for the thieves?
As tubemonkey said, "License the patent."

Patents last for 17 to 20 years, so when the patents expire then anyone can copy at will. BTW, the company in question has been making AAC devices for well over 20 years, so a lot of their patents have probably already expired.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

There is no evidence of a shed-load of money being spent on R&D for the software.

May I ask how you know what their R&D spend is? Have you looked at the company's accounts?

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by HarryT

May I ask how you know what their R&D spend is? Have you looked at the company's accounts?

Have you?

[taustin]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

Why would you assume that they would not be interested?

Based on the blog entry (which is not, of course, a reliable source), they have chosen to file a lawsuit rather than discuss licensing.

Why would you assume they would be?

[taustin]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

If it's more expensive to make and develop than most cars and all it does is make make sounds when buttons are pushed they are doing something wrong.

Would you be willing to look the parents of a child who cannot communicate any other way in the eye and say that?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

Have you?

No I haven't, but you're the one who's stated that there's no evidence that large amounts of money have been spent on R&D, so I rather assumed that there was some factual basis for your statement.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by HarryT

No I haven't, but you're the one who's stated that there's no evidence that large amounts of money have been spent on R&D, so I rather assumed that there was some factual basis for your statement.

The app costs $300.
The AAC device costs $15,145.
Assuming a very generous $845 as the costs of making the hardware the difference between the two of 14k would be for the licensing fees in your opinion?

Do you think that Prentke Romich is paying Semantic Compaction Systems 14k (over 90%) for each device that they sell?

[wodin]

Originally Posted by HarryT

It's a specialist product, not a mass-market consumer product like a car. Specialist products tend to be expensive, by their very nature. There is a very, very restricted market for such items, hence R&D costs have to be recouped from a relatively small number of unit sales.

I have a real life example of a “specialist product”. Some few years ago I began to develop early onset age related macular degeneration. While I could still see, I began researching book magnifying devices, AKA “readers” that would enable me to read after my AMD progressed to the point of not being able to read.

These devices consisted of a camera on a stand with an area below to place the book. It would then project a picture of the book on a large screen. To my dismay I found that these systems cost thousands to tens of thousands of dollars. The ones that cost thousands parlayed an already existing computer, and consisted of nothing more than a camera stand, a webcam and some webcam software. The ones that cost tens of thousands graciously included a five hundred dollar computer!

I reasoned that high res webcams and full screen webcam software already existed for tens of dollars rather than thousands, and the camera stand was little more than a tripod, also tens of dollars. So for a hundred or so dollars and a little ingenuity, I could functionally duplicate a system costing a few thousand!

Thankfully, my AMD stabilized and was restricted to only on eye, so I didn’t need a reader; but I remain appalled by the markups involved anytime a product can be remotely defined as “medical”!

[5thWiggle]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

The app costs $300.
The AAC device costs $15,145.
Assuming a very generous $845 as the costs of making the hardware the difference between the two of 14k would be for the licensing fees in your opinion?

Do you think that Prentke Romich is paying Semantic Compaction Systems 14k (over 90%) for each device that they sell?

Just spent some time on the Prentke Romich site reading the specs.

The $15K device is this one which is actually an ACC device AND full win7 laptop with eye-gaze mouse pointer. In other words, it's a full computer and communication device for a severly disabled (full paralysis) person.

The ipad app is more equivalent to the Springboard lite.

[Freeshadow]

I'd rather label the existing problem as "lousy health insurance for the kiddo" because as we have seen specific devices do exist, but the blogger says they need to pay the stuff for the girl from their own pocket.

[Dulin's Books]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

There is no evidence of a shed-load of money being spent on R&D for the software.

the existence of a desirable retail version that works well is evidence in and of itself