
Feds Raid Hoverboard Booth at CES - ted0
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-07/u-s-marshals-raid-hoverboard-booth-at-ces
======
hkmurakami
So a Chinese company knocks off an American company's patented product,
ignores the patent holder's correspondence to cease production of the product,
then gets their booth shut down forcibly by federal agents who were notified
by the patent holder.

The headline makes it seem like some grave injustice occurred (and the
headline definitely made me open the link in my timeline) but it seems like
the patent holder is simply exercising their legal rights here.

~~~
duaneb
Really? The headline (currently) reads U.S. Marshals (or Feds) Raid Hoverboard
Booth at CES. I don't see any reference to injustice—I generally associate
raids with positive busts, which is what makes stuff like raiding the Pirate
Bay (albeit different feds) so shocking.

~~~
davesque
Don't really agree. I feel pretty safe in saying there's a general negative
connotation when the words "Feds" and "raid" are present in the same sentence.
It may be true that the words themselves don't necessarily mean anything
negative, but I bet most people would agree that the tone of the words is
negative sounding.

~~~
derefr
I think the words default to having a negative emotional valence of the object
of the sentence is a person, but a positive valence if the object is a
company.

Feds raid widow's apartment → obviously bad

Feds raid Exxon offices → obviously good

...which is kind of fascinating for what it implies. It seems to me,
personally, that raids against companies are almost always _well-researched_
before being executed, to the point of basically never being even slightly
ethically ambiguous. Whereas raids against individuals seem to be almost
_always_ ethically ambiguous, and often entirely inexplicable.

Then again, the "Feds" in those two cases are two different groups: it's
mostly the SEC that raids companies, while it's mostly the DEA that raids
individuals. This might explain a lot of the difference in attitude.

~~~
lostlogin
Ill offer the NZ police/FBI/Hollywood raid on Dotcom up as a counter example.
Numerous laws violated which even a basic summary for facts would have caught.
Then again, the Feds got what they wanted while the suckers and idiots down
here were left to sort out their mess.

------
droithomme
Who is stealing from whom?

Future Motion applied for their patent on July 21, 2015 and the application
was published and publicly viewable on Nov. 12, 2015.

[http://www.freshpatents.com/-dt20151112ptan20150323935.php](http://www.freshpatents.com/-dt20151112ptan20150323935.php)

Changzhou First International Trade Co was established in 2011. I wasn't able
to tell when they first started selling these scooters.

Were they really able to clone a product and get it in stores and demoed at
CES between Nov. 12 2015 and today? Amazingly agile if so.

 _And not even addressing the issue that all these products really seem to be
violating Dean Kamen 's patents._

~~~
fastball
Once they get the patent, that is no longer the issue. If you think the
Chinese company had the product and was selling it in the US before Future
Motion even applied for their patent, then that is the fault of the US Patent
Office for granting the patent in the first place, not the fault of Future
Motion.

If there is an issue, it is with the USPTO, not with the actions of the
federal marshals as tipped off by Future Motion.

And if you look at the website posted by _soheil_ , is is obvious that ripping
off other people's inventions is this company's bread and butter.

I have yet to see a Chinese company that isn't on the wrong side of
patent/copyright infringement. They don't seem to understand patents at all.

~~~
gscott
Chinese companies understand Patents are a nice blue print to make their own
products and sell them in places the patent holder self never heard of and
right in the patent holders backyard... all the hoverboards that are exploding
are knock offs

~~~
scotty79
> all the hoverboards that are exploding are knock offs

Which are the original ones for this most popular design?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NL58ZSeXz-s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NL58ZSeXz-s)

------
soheil
For those who wanna see the products side by side:

Onewheel (American) [1]

Totter (Chinese) [2]

[1]
[http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/gadgetlab/2014/01/1W2_1021...](http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/gadgetlab/2014/01/1W2_1021.jpg)

[2]
[http://g02.s.alicdn.com/kf/HTB1LWviKFXXXXc3XXXXq6xXFXXXU/Ele...](http://g02.s.alicdn.com/kf/HTB1LWviKFXXXXc3XXXXq6xXFXXXU/Electric-
Hoverboard-scooter-one-wheel-with-700W.jpg)

~~~
morganvachon
If anything, based on these photos the Chinese "knockoff" looks more refined.
The Onewheel device pictured in your first link looks like a prototype or at
best, a first revision.

Then again, maybe they are going for that retro-custom-modded-skateboard look?

~~~
chasing
The knock-off looks cheaper and more likely to be made of shitty plastic. To
my eyes.

~~~
morganvachon
It probably is cheaper, being a knockoff. My point was more that the Onewheel
device looks like something I'd slap together in my workshop out of spare
metal brackets and plywood, not something I'd bring to mass market.

All that said, I wouldn't ride either one. At my age bones don't heal as fast
as they used to.

------
vannevar
I was hoping they were being raided for gross abuse of the term "hoverboard,"
but alas, that isn't the case.

~~~
fratlas
In a perfect world.

------
prbuckley
The largest surprise to me here is that a small startup could get the judicial
system to act in a matter of days to order the execution of a raid! That is
impressive.

~~~
webXL
Feds don't mind popping their heads on the evening news every once in a while.
What better venue than CES?

------
chromaton
Here's a very similar design created by Jamison Go and his team at Georgia
Tech back in 2011: [http://thevariableconstant.blogspot.com/2011/02/survey-
self-...](http://thevariableconstant.blogspot.com/2011/02/survey-self-
balancing-electric.html)

~~~
gruez
yeah but that has 2 wheels. ours only has one. definitely worthy of a new
patent. /s

------
mullingitover
IMHO _everyone_ should be getting raided by the feds. Segway's patent from
2001 covers their 'inventions' handily.

[1]
[http://www.google.com/patents/US6302230](http://www.google.com/patents/US6302230)

~~~
donatj
Came here to say basically this. It's not a new invention just because the
number of wheels changed.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Confused. The stability control system depends utterly on the number and
arrangement of wheels. Such a change obviously constitutes a new invention.

~~~
donatj
Android and iOS are both smartphones, despite completely different software.
The invention is the hardware.

~~~
oldmanjay
the implied analogy doesn't really seem applicable here. What are you trying
to say?

------
sciguy77
I used to work with the guy who made this hoverboard (the US company, not the
Chinese one). He's an incredibly talented engineer, I'm glad he's able to
fight crappy competitors that are hurting the hoverboard industry.

------
duncan_bayne
Right, now can we employ the same strategy to have GPL-violating products
pulled from the shelves?

Seriously. Perhaps this is an avenue to pursue in the case of unrepentant GPL
violation by manufacturers - render their final products unsellable.

------
philip1209
> Lynzey Donahue, a U.S. Marshals official, said marshals served a court order
> at CES.

If there's a court order, this seems to be a lot less sensational than the
comment thread makes it appear to be.

~~~
brazzledazzle
Why would US Marshals raid a booth at CES if they didn't have a court order?
There might be some reason I'm not thinking of but I would have been surprised
to hear that they didn't have one.

------
lifeformed
Why are these being called hoverboards?

~~~
rdtsc
Because everyone wants to be like McFly from Back To The Future? Even though
they all have wheels.

I think there was one company that had a bigger board and had fans (or
propellers) but it didn't look ready to sell yet.

------
supergirl
"By 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Onewheel filed a request with a judge to stop the
Trotters from being displayed on the show floor."

So in a matter of a day the judge decided who is right and who is wrong? I
thought these patent disputes usually take years.

------
soheil
Can't help but think part of this must have been a publicity stun, why
couldn't they simply deny their application for a booth or discreetly show up
in the morning and don't let them setup their booth to begin with?

~~~
mattthebaker
OneWheel does not own or run CES, how would they have the power to deny an
application?

I agree it would have been a better move if they could have convinced CES to
handle the matter quietly. Lots of reasons why that may not have been
possible.

Whether or not the publicity is even positive for one wheel -- they are seen
calling in the feds, being generally litigious, and calling attention to the
competitor -- is another question. He was definitely doing his best to spin it
positive in the Bloomberg article saying this is good for the marketplace,
etc.

~~~
URSpider94
The CTA (organizers of CES) aren't going to do a thing unless they are served
a court order. No way they want to get into the business of arbitrating IP
disputes between their thousands of exhibitors!

------
11thEarlOfMar
The OneWheel is manufactured in Silicon Valley.

------
backtoyoujim
I just saw that thing on A. Savage video.

[https://youtu.be/7Qi5snumoeY?t=3m34s](https://youtu.be/7Qi5snumoeY?t=3m34s)

------
danschumann
I'm glad Americans are standing up for their IP. #TRUMP!

~~~
Wingman4l7
I was right with you until the hashtag.

------
msie
The design is so simple/obvious that I believe many people could have come up
with it independently. It seems a bygone conclusion that the Chinese company
was intentionally stealing from the US one but that might not be the case.
Under patent law it doesn't matter if you invented something independently. I
too would probably scoff at the correspondence from the US firm thinking it
was some patent troll. I mean how do you patent a "board on a rolling pin"???

~~~
rhino369
Obviousness under patent law is judged at the time of the invention. Most
(all?) inventions would have eventually being discovered by someone else.
Patents are the reward for getting there first.

Chinese companies ignore patent letters and suits because they are essentially
immune from US courts as long as they stay under the radar and don't sell
directly in the USA.

> I mean how do you patent a "board on a rolling pin"???

You can reduce any invention to a couple word summary that seems absurd.

The transistor is "just" an amplifier.

~~~
msie
There is prior art for the design so we cant tell if they ripped off the US
guy. Also look at the history of patent trolls.

------
jMyles
Whether you believe in the general utility of patents in the information age
or not (and to be clear, I don't), this is a good reminder that patents are
violence. You can't be truly non-violent and also believe in patents.

~~~
watty
I'm not a fan of patents but I don't understand your comment. What exactly is
violent about this?

~~~
geofft
The only way you can enforce a patent is by having armed law enforcement do so
(as they did in this case), or relying on the perception that armed law
enforcement _could_ do so.

That said, this argument would essentially hold that to live in civilized
society (at least, as we understand civilization), to take advantage of tax-
funded things like roads, to make use of government-enforced currencies, etc.
is also violence. Which might be technically true, but is not useful, and
certainly not useful for the goal of getting the _rest_ of the world to be
less violent; I know very few people whose brand of non-violence does not
involve attempting to stop other people's violence. Indeed, a serious
application of this argument would require one not to use the Internet, which
was government-funded (i.e., funded by tax dollars, i.e., funded by money
taken at implicit threat-of-gunpoint from citizens) out of military budgets
(violence incarnate) and is still a bit government-run, and it would certainly
require one not to use Hacker News, given how much Y Combinator firmly
requires a strong conception of private property.

So I think our pal Sonic the Hedgehog's famous quote applies, although the
context is slightly different:
[http://i.imgur.com/wi1QIgG.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/wi1QIgG.jpg)

~~~
AndrewKemendo
_So I think our pal Sonic the Hedgehog 's famous quote applies, although the
context is slightly different:
[http://i.imgur.com/wi1QIgG.jpg*](http://i.imgur.com/wi1QIgG.jpg*)

Well that certainly wasn't expected, but was good for an absurdist chuckle.
Why would someone put this together with Sonic? Purely for the absurdity?

~~~
geofft
I think the backstory there is roughly
[https://twitter.com/sonic_hedgehog/status/616316157109256192](https://twitter.com/sonic_hedgehog/status/616316157109256192)

(The remainder of @sonic_hedgehog is also amazingly absurdist, but usually not
particularly anti-capitalist.)

------
staunch
Startups that can't compete on product deserve to be beaten in the
marketplace. If a Chinese factory can clone your device just by looking at it,
you're definitely not doing anything worthy of a patent.

~~~
carlosdp
That's absurd, it can look the same and still be a crappy product that has
issues like the battery blowing up. The consumer might not know the difference
between your board and the lower quality one that looks the same on the
outside, and when news goes around with a picture of a board that looks
exactly like yours, it hurts your product's sales.

~~~
voltagex_
That's exactly what happened in Australia [0]

It's definitely made me re-evaluate some of my AliBaba purchases - I don't
think insurance will cover you if your house is burnt down by something that
doesn't comply to Australian safety standards.

[0]: [http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-07/government-raises-
hove...](http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-07/government-raises-hoverboard-
safety-concerns/7072608)

~~~
rconti
I would be very surprised if there was such an exclusion, and if it were
enforceable.

------
sauronlord
The "inventor" at Onewheel, Kyle Doerksen, quickly changed the conversation to
about the 'safety' of 'knockoff' products. What does he know about that? Or is
he full of it and just slandering another company with a product that looks
like "his"? Disgusting attitude for an "inventor".

Hello!!! McFly!! The inventor of the Segway, Kamen, and the inventor of the
unicycle, Myers, want to have a word with you...

