Patents, Clones, Software Tools

[MusicScienceGuy]

So, one would think that the US patent on the Axis has already expired.Koert

Perhaps the earliest patents have expired. There may be others that were taken out later, and cover small but invaluable innovations that made the basic invention work in critical ways. The Axis-49 units have some nice and some subtle design features.

In any case, don't sweat the patents. They are intended (originally anyway) to keep a small but newly successful company from having their key invention (and other hard, expensive work, like marketing) swiped by another company.

If you can build a hand made unit for less than $500 and piles of time, please tell us how!

If you want to build them commercially, work with C-Thru - their knowledge and advice will be worth the licencing cost.
Note that you will be competing in a market that they have staked out and created.

Ken

[notepool2]

Hello Koert, Regarding the US patent, 17 years is the timescale from the date it's GRANTED, which in the case of the USA, was 1998. So the USA patent is valid until 2015. Not that it makes much difference to me; I never made a penny from it, neither did anybody else in the project. Instead we lost money! But what I'm trying to do is make 'a living' because this is the only way I can continue to contribute anything to the project. I appreciate MusicScienceGuy's kind comment that we 'did the heavy lifting'. Heavy! Like pushing a boulder up a mountain for 20 years! Still, the idea has attracted some wonderful, talented, capable and supportive people.