Hoverboard booth at CES swatted as Future Motion claims a Chinese company ripped off its design - Polidicks

[url]http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/01/us-marshals-raid-booth-grab-chinese-scooters-from-ces/[/url] [quote=Ars Technica]Two United States Marshals raided a booth at the Consumer Electronics Show on Thursday afternoon, walking away with several one-wheeled electric scooters. The company that makes the scooters, Changzhou First International Trade Co., was sued by American company Future Motion, on two claims of alleged patent infringement. Changzhou hasn’t made any formal legal response or yet had a chance to defend itself against the claims. Future Motion’s lawyers filed their motion in federal court in Las Vegas on Tuesday and then had a hearing by telephone on Wednesday. After the hearing, which lasted just seven minutes, US District Judge Miranda Du issued an order that Changzhou’s products be seized and that it stop sales. Acting on the emergency court order, the marshals quietly disassembled the Changzhou booth and seized "five to six" scooters along with some marketing materials, according to Future Motion’s attorney, Shawn Kolitch, who was present for the raid. "This was unusually fast—I’ve never heard of a situation where anybody was able to get a [temporary restraining order] and a seizure the same day," he told Ars. "I think the reason that it was exceptionally fast was that we emphasized in the motion that the harm that we were most concerned about was the attention that this product would get at CES."[/quote]

Hopefully this doesn't end like the Segway. The company that originally made it being bought out by the knockoff.

[QUOTE] Changzhou hasn’t made any formal legal response or [b]yet had a chance to defend itself against the claims[/b]. Future Motion’s lawyers filed their motion in federal court in Las Vegas on Tuesday and then had a hearing by telephone on Wednesday. After the hearing, which lasted just [b]seven minutes[/b], US District Judge Miranda Du issued an order that Changzhou’s products be seized and that it stop sales. [/QUOTE] seriously how is this legal.

[QUOTE=Svinnik;49494953]seriously how is this legal.[/QUOTE] [QUOTE]"I think the reason that it was exceptionally fast was that we emphasized in the motion that the harm that we were most concerned about was the attention that this product would get at CES."[/QUOTE] This seems completely fair.

[QUOTE=Svinnik;49494953]seriously how is this legal.[/QUOTE] Future Motion has all the right patent paperwork, including on design. Like they say in one of the articles on this incident, if you can hold up the design patent next to the alleged infringing product and see it's clearly 99% identical, there's not much else you need. I own a few of the genuine Future Motion Onewheel's, and I'm saddened to see it get lumped together with "hoverboards." The Onewheel requires a fair amount of skill, is extremely robust, and is American made, but because of all the hoverboard drama it's getting overshadowed and swept up in the anti-rideables sentiment.

I read a long and interesting article the other day about Shane Chen travelling to China, and seeing the factories - they just shrugged him off. He self-admittedly sucks at marketing, so I hope this wasn't a long play from him to get another company to do all of the hard work of marketing and minimizing manufacturing for him to swoop in and take a large portion of the cake.

[QUOTE=Supacasey;49495132]Future Motion has all the right patent paperwork, including on design. Like they say in one of the articles on this incident, if you can hold up the design patent next to the alleged infringing product and see it's clearly 99% identical, there's not much else you need. I own a few of the genuine Future Motion Onewheel's, and I'm saddened to see it get lumped together with "hoverboards." The Onewheel requires a fair amount of skill, is extremely robust, and is American made, but because of all the hoverboard drama it's getting overshadowed and swept up in the anti-rideables sentiment.[/QUOTE] How much detail does a patent have to have in order to be prove they invented it? Can they still sue if the measurements are different?

[QUOTE=RoboChimp;49496601]How much detail does a patent have to have in order to be prove they invented it? Can they still sue if the measurements are different?[/QUOTE] It really depends, but patents can be rather abstract.

[QUOTE=Tamschi;49500866]It really depends, but patents can be rather abstract.[/QUOTE] The Smartphone market has already illustrated this to full extent of the possible retardation of US patent law.