Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/10/19/chinese-manufacturers-taking-k.html
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I wonder if there’s a copy of that fidget cube yet?
Yep!
Lots!
http://www.alibaba.com/trade/search?fsb=y&IndexArea=product_en&CatId=&SearchText=fidget+cube
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Chinese manufacturers taking Kickstarter ideas and selling them faster
They are everywhere!
BTW: Just in time for Halloween!
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Remember when you had to ask somebody to take your picture and hope they didn’t run off and hop on an idling moped with your camera?
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Good to hear, given how many issues I’ve had with Kickstarter people just not quite getting around to fulfilling things for over a year. Makes me think that maybe some of that vaporstuff I liked but didn’t fund may actually be getting made…
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Yeah. Now you have to steal your own camera from yourself! I chased myself all across Venice, this one time, only getting away from me after a pretty awesome gondola race!
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“It’s fine”
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There was recently a pretty funny movie, Shanghai Calling, which had essentially this problem as a major plot device.
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Is there a Freewrite yet?
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Aliexpress even has color variants, with unique names!
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Our patent process biting us in the ass again.
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That’s a pre-sale. Have you found any actually shipping?
I wonder if someone could create a kickstarter for something ridiculous (yet still lies within what’s allowed for funding) and see if these chinese manufacturers try to replicate it.
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LOL wut?
It seems to me that the patent process might have helped Sherman (the inventor who posted the Kickstarter project). If he had, for example, at least filed a provisional before launching the Kickstarter, he would have had up to one year to convert it to a utility patent (using some of that sweet Kickstarter cash), and might have been awarded an actual, non-trollish patent. One that he could have used to block importation of Chinese knockoffs.
“Patents, how do they fucking work?”
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Yeah, but if he had the money for patents and then lawyers to enforce them, he wouldn’t need $40K for a kickstarter.
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I was referring to the costs involved in our system which favors those with money over those without. The associated costs of our patent system seems to have the effect of people not filing patents.
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Dude, you can file a provisional for peanuts. Seriously, you can write it yourself, and the filing fee for a small inventor is $130. My IP firm usually does them for less than $2k.
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Please. Just stop. You can file a provisional patent at minimal cost, if you give enough of a shit about your invention to do it. That gives you a year to see if the invention is financial viable. If it is, you can then pay a real patent lawyer to convert it to a utility patent. Sure, that will cost you some dough, but again, this would only be done if the invention was worthwhile (that is, likely to be profitable).
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Alternate timeline: Chinese manufacturer comes up with a clever idea and announces it for pre-order. Random dude surfing aliexpress sees it and says “Hey, I can start a kickstarter for this. I’ll charge a lot of money and then I’ll fulfill them by ordering from these Chinese guys. Everybody wins!” Unfortunately, the Chinese manufacturer runs into issues and doesn’t ship on the timeline that the dude expected and he falls behind his kickstarter commitments, so he makes up a story about how he was ripped off by “Those darn Chinese.”
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And yet, so many people don’t file patents. Weird huh?
