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Reproducing Obsolete Parts 5

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ranchak

ranchak

Mechanical
Sep 20, 2009
5
I have a small business in which I would like to reproduce some parts for motorcycles. The motorcycles are models that are over 20 years old. The parts that I want to reproduce are now discontinued, although occasionally a new part may show up on eBay. I approached the manufacturer of these motorcycles to try and gain "their" permission to remanufacturer these parts. I was told by their legal department that someone would get back to me. This was almost 6 months ago and I have not heard back from them.

My question is will I be infringing on their design or patent (although the parts I will be making are not patented)? Some of their parts bear their corporate name which I will not reproduce on my replacement part. Is there a timeframe in which replacement parts can/cannot be made? I have tried to google for an answer, but the best answer I found was on this forum:


Not quite the same situation as mine, the OEM manufacturer in my case does not supply an alternative part.

I have another part that I would make which is a replacement for a tool that is still in production and parts a readily available. What are the consequences in this situation? Thanks for all your help.
 
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OEM have no motive to keep their old products in service unless THEY are making a healthy profit on parts after the costs of stock holding and distribution of probably low volume lines is considered.

They would generally prefer that your old bike was scrapped and you bought a new one.

I think Henry Ford is reputed to have once said, he would give everyone in the USA a free car if he had an exclusive right to supply spare parts.

I think manufacturers of ink jet printers pretty much follow that approach today, even without exclusive rights.

Regards
Pat
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patprimmer said:
I think manufacturers of ink jet printers pretty much follow that approach today, even without exclusive rights.
Click to expand...
Don't be so sure it's not exclusive. A number of printers now have embedded ID chips in the ink cartridges... no chip, no workie... and only the original manufacturer is supposed to be able to supply the cartridges.

Dan - Owner
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That is not an exclusive right, it is a devious attempt at restrictive trading and in my opinion, unless clearly declared at point of sale borders on fraud and earns a never deal with these people again award from me.

If you buy a printer with a big discount on an understanding that you will probably pay more for a cartridge than you did for the printer, then so be it, but if you are duped into buying a cheap printer only to be surprised to find the original cartridge was only large enough to do a few pages and the machine has been deliberately made to not work with fairly priced cartridges, that is unacceptable conduct by the supplier.

Regards
Pat
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As Scott Adams says, most businesses are confusopolies.
By the time you cost out the printers and the cartridges and then discover that each cartridge claims to print a different number of pages you reach the point that you can either have a life or you can work it out.

The only trouble with Pat's advice is that that is exactly good enough for them.

When Tescos stacks up loads of cheap printers with a "When they're gone, they're gone" sign, they don't even care about the inks. The price of these printers is such they are almost as disposable as biros. Who buys ink refills for biros any more?
Yes, you buy a cheap printer and it is a toss up whether to buy a new printer or ink cartridges.
I don't know how they make any money on the printers but how many sets of cartridges before you can't get them any more (I have a Lexmark 3 in 1 which works fine... but I can't get cartridges). None of the printers I can find have cartridges you can refill yourself and most apear to defeat Cartridge world. The Espon I have now they don't refill, they replace with their own cartridges which are almost as expensive as the Epson but they say contain more ink.... really?
I do very little printing yet it seems to me I am forever changing the ink.
So, with all these cheap ink options, how much does Epson expect to make on ink sales? How much are we being led to believe we get the thing cheap because they make their money on ink when they actually make their money on the printer to start with.

The real problem is that these printers don't actually seem to do much printing before they end up as landfill and that is what really concerns me.




JMW
 
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I always check out Cartridge World for recommendations before I buy a printer.

Canon have been very refill friendly to date

Regards
Pat
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But, so far, my experience with Canon's Pixmas has been abysmal. Their first "free" printer I got printed less than 100 pages before the ink either ran out or dried up. I got another "free" Pixma, but haven't taken it out of the box yet. There's a possible trade-off in the time required to refill the cartridges vs. the time it take to set up a new printer.

I got a Samsung color laser, but that one just plain scares me. When the fuser heats up, which it does periodically, my room lights DIM! I've gotten sporadic power meter readings in excess of 20 amps from this guy.

Unless you're cranking at least several pages of color per day, there really doesn't seem to be a good color printing solution. I do color printing maybe once every 2-3 months.

TTFN

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I also have a Samsung colour laser and it works fine. Factory toner cartridges were small, but Cartridge World high yield cartridges are lasting well.

Regards
Pat
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When I was in the armored car business, we found that Mercedes mandated that their logo be removed from the car if a great deal of modification had taken place. Fair enough.
But sometimes the cars went out the door without the logo removal. Logo removal was a violation of the principal of not calling attention to the armoring.
 
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With consumer goods, I think once you own it you are entitled to do with it what you please so long as if you use it in public, you conform to local laws re safety etc.

Regards
Pat
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I did say use, not reproduce.

If you buy one copy, you can use one copy for whatever you like.

Regards
Pat
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I understood... but the EULA you agree to with most software these days often puts serious restrictions on what you can do with it (MS being the worst offender, Apple probably following a close second).

Dan - Owner
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Field expediency demands the ability to work around a shortage.

I heard first hand the story of a Pan Am capt who had a wing fairing break loose on a DC-7, and it was flapping in the breeze. He made a precautionary landing in Canada after crossing the pond west bound. He worked with a local sheet metal shop to duplicate the part. It was installed and they flew home without a problem. The bosses gave no medals or recognition, but the job got done.
 
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Why can't the OP use the model that the after market car parts people use. You can go to a auto parts and buy newly minted parts and in most cases a rebuilt OEM part. Besides the dealers the only place you can get OEM parts is a junk yard.


Have you ever figured up the price per gallon of printer inks?
 
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unclesyd

I don't intend to bother to do the calcs, ut I would say somewhere in the region of a similar mass of gold.

I have seen pigments that cost A$15,000 per kg or more in low volume as they did sell it by the gram.

Regards
Pat
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macgyvers2000
I do not have to worry about it any more.
I trained a replacement to do my job at my old company and retired in april.
B.E.
 
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This thread keeps coming up, so I'll throw my 2 cents in.

As long as a product is not protected by patent or trademark, and as long as the products are purchased on the open market, it is legal to make copies and sell the copies as your own part.

This is common in the aerospace industry. I worked for about 3 years at a company that did exactly that - reversed engineered parts and sold the replacement parts as our own. (We received FAA approval on the parts, so they were legal.)

Software is covered by license agreements and it works differently than actual products. Some companies have tried to sell you a license to use their product, but it hasn't worked very well.

So - to the OP - no permission needed to be granted and what happened was legal.
 
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