SawStop sues Bosch

[Davej]

Bring it to market here in the US, Kev...  You're already close to the manufs by way of your location .  And your marketing tag line could be something like,
The OZ Slider, it's a 'gasser' of a table saw..... [wink]

Australia? We're further from the home of Felder/Hammer that the US !!

  NO, No, No.  I meant you're closer to the Asian Factories than we are, not Austria.  [eek]

Lucky for you - I was about to repeat you for geography this year [big grin]

That said - many times I've been complimented in the U.S. on how well I speak "American" ... like American is even a language  [eek]

I had an ex-Army mate get into bother trying to enter the US on a UK passport. When asked which Country he was travelling from he declared England which was met with confusion from the official - "England, you know, where we invented English...the language you speak?" met with icy stares. Wasn't allowed through until he said UK. Unreal.

Yep - US customs officials .. bred in captivity, with any hint of personality engineering out of the strain.

I can imagine scientists engineering the creature ...

[evil laugh]

First we'll start with the stare of Hannibal Lecter .... then we'll add the personality from a piece of concrete ...

Kev . What have you got against concrete !!

 

[Kev]

Bring it to market here in the US, Kev...  You're already close to the manufs by way of your location .  And your marketing tag line could be something like,
The OZ Slider, it's a 'gasser' of a table saw..... [wink]

Australia? We're further from the home of Felder/Hammer that the US !!

  NO, No, No.  I meant you're closer to the Asian Factories than we are, not Austria.  [eek]

Lucky for you - I was about to repeat you for geography this year [big grin]

That said - many times I've been complimented in the U.S. on how well I speak "American" ... like American is even a language  [eek]

I had an ex-Army mate get into bother trying to enter the US on a UK passport. When asked which Country he was travelling from he declared England which was met with confusion from the official - "England, you know, where we invented English...the language you speak?" met with icy stares. Wasn't allowed through until he said UK. Unreal.

Yep - US customs officials .. bred in captivity, with any hint of personality engineering out of the strain.

I can imagine scientists engineering the creature ...

[evil laugh]

First we'll start with the stare of Hannibal Lecter .... then we'll add the personality from a piece of concrete ...

Kev . What have you got against concrete !!

Fair enough .. you're right ... I'm really sorry concrete [embarassed]

My luck I'm going to have one of Gass' buddies trying a deformation case on me on behalf of concrete everywhere [crying]

 

[benwheeler]

I've seen some very nice polished concrete that has far more personality than some people I've worked with..

 

[HowardH]

I looked at both the SS and the Hammer slider when I was researching my table saw purchase.  Both were about the same money.  I went with the slider for a lot of reasons.

1.  If you keep your hands several inches away from the blade, i.e. using the slider, you can't get close to the blade.
2.  Very easy to clamp the work piece to the slider and push the table, not the workpiece.  Safety issue... again.
3.  Cross cutting plywood can be done safely by one person. 
4.  I do a lot of cutting boards and I can get very thin slices accurately.  When the width of the board gets me a bit close to the blade, I'll use the Grr-ripper. I love this accessory.  Keeps my hands safely away from the blade and it's very stable. 
5.  It really doesn't take up that much room.  I have a 48" slider. 
6.  It's a beast.  Very solid.  Only issue was initial setup.  No local support at the time.  Now not a problem as we have a dedicated Felder rep in N. Texas.  Great guy and worked at the factory for 7 years before moving to Texas.  Will have to introduce him to Texas BBQ!

 

[Hurricane Whisperer]

I'll also maintain from my previous rants that the saw stop mechanism only protects people from what are essentially unsafe table saw usage methods anyway. Unsuspected kickback and flying offcuts are the real danger to people that do observe proper table saw safety and the Sawstop does NOTHING to deal with these issues ... what it does do is potentially lull the user into thinking they are "safe" ... so very wrong.

What about the well-designed blade guard/splitter with anti-kickback pawls and instructional owner's manual?

I pretty much agree with the sentiment you quoted.

As to the blade guard/splitter, those are fairly standard things fitted to saws these days.

Blade stopping offers a benefit, but kick back is not addressed in the same degree as afforded by Sliding table saws in the scenarios that I have found working on my ancient conventional saw that.  And kick back is much harder to prevent by proper usage compared to actually running your hand into the blade. 

I have not seen a blade stop saw that has a fence that can be set up so that the area beyond the saw blade is adjustable to prevent binding.  Of course, you could mount a spacer to the fence that stops short of the blade.

The move to make blade stop technology mandatory would mean that Euro slider saws would be even more expensive and I think that slider's offer more protection than blade stopping does for more types of accidents.  With a slider, I can be completely away from the blade with no reason to get anywhere near it in the first place and protect myself from the blade and work pieces flying through the air.

For my money, I would rather spend the money on a slider than blade stopping technology.

Both would be ideal, but since slider's cost a lot of money, and I think they are more important in stopping the kinds of accidents that I cannot prevent by carefully using push sticks and other safety equipment on a conventional saw without sliding, and a sliding saw offers the ability to clamp to a sliding table and to  push at a point where you are nowhere near the blade or tossed work, I would choose sliding rather than blade stopping to improve my own safety and I resent any attempt to push sliding out of my reach by forcing stopping on sliding saws while not forcing sliding on blade stopping saws.

I would feel safer with a sliding saw than a blade stopping saw as I have experienced kick back but I have never come close to sticking my hand into the blade.

I currently use wheeled hold downs retrofitted to my ancient saw, and I use track saws when possible to relegate the table saw to as little work as possible.  But I am pretty sure the slider would be more beneficial for me, my safety, and my work.  I would need time with a slider to eliminate any equivocation I have on the subject.

I would think safety data on sliding saws vs non-sliding saws would be the ultimate way to determine which technology is more important to reducing the number and severity of accidents.

 

[tiralie]

Pre-Trial ruling gives SawStop an edge over Bosch...

 

[Svar]

Unsuspected kickback and flying offcuts are the real danger to people that do observe proper table saw safety and the Sawstop does NOTHING to deal with these issues ... what it does do is potentially lull the user into thinking they are "safe" ... so very wrong.

Well, seat belts do nothing to protect you from bricks falling from the truck in front, hence they are useless, right? Seat belts also potentially lull the driver into thinking that unsafe driving habits are "safe". So, why are you wearing them?

 

[chrisrosenb]

Unsuspected kickback and flying offcuts are the real danger to people that do observe proper table saw safety and the Sawstop does NOTHING to deal with these issues ... what it does do is potentially lull the user into thinking they are "safe" ... so very wrong.

Well, seat belts do nothing to protect you from bricks falling from the truck in front, hence they are useless, right? Seat belts also potentially lull the driver into thinking that unsafe driving habits are "safe". So, why are you wearing them?

Because the government says we have to.

 

[bobfog]

An interesting anecdote, but Volvo invented the seat belt and decided to give the design away so that other car manufacturers could freely use it in the interest of saving lives, rather than making profit. Maybe the directors at SawStop should think on that!

 

[Kev]

An interesting anecdote, but Volvo invented the seat belt and decided to give the design away so that other car manufacturers could freely use it in the interest of saving lives, rather than making profit. Maybe the directors at SawStop should think on that!

Exactly. Make an initial profit - then give something back to the planet!! Even let others collaborate and improve the design. Too much Gordon Gekko mentality these days.

... don't get me started on thew money some actors make, we've built our own artificial heroes and made them insanely wealthy.

 

[Rip Van Winkle]

According to the articles I've read regarding one of the early lawsuits between Steve Gass/Sawstop and the power tool industry, Ryobi had almost agreed to license the Sawstop technology for a 3 percent fee, which would rise to 8 percent if other msnufacturers later also adopted the technology. I presume late adopters would have been asked to pay a higher percentage than Ryobi. I couldn't tell whether the fee percentage would be based on wholesale or retail cost. Ryobi later backed out of the deal without signing contracts that had been written up.

Black and Decker had supposedly offered a 1 percent fee to license the technology, but Gass rejected the offer.

One of the other sticking points between Gass and the power tool manufacturers was that Gass wouldn't "indemnify" the manufacturers in case of lawsuits If the Sawstop enabled saws malfunctioned.

 

[AlexThePalex]

Luckily this has no bearing outside north america. Rest of the world can rejoice.

Volvo thought the safety of the general population was more important. And since its introduction the seat belt has saved countless lives. Sawstop doesn't seem to have the same interest in saving people from injury.

 

[jeh]

Luckily this has no bearing outside north america. Rest of the world can rejoice.

Volvo thought the safety of the general population was more important. And since its introduction the seat belt has saved countless lives. Sawstop doesn't seem to have the same interest in saving people from injury.

Not a reasonable comparison. There are a few more cars on the road than there are table saws in shops.

I would say part of the reason the companies don't like the licensing fee is that there would no longer be a market for $99 tablesaws. Gass invented a great product and is entitled to be protected for doing so. He offered licensing terms that no one accepted and this is his prerogative. He could of at any point licensed it and moved on, but apparently money is not the reason.

Reaxx will be released to market. IMO he has made a bad bet by not licensing his product. Bosch has made an end run by creating their own solution and I think when the dust settles they will license it to others (especially higher end saws). Once that happens the game is over for SawStop and they will be a footnote in a business law course on licensing and patents. I also see similar safety devices moving to other stationary tools fairly rapidly as Bosch has the engineering capability and financial backing to do so. Once the form factor is reduced they will be on miter saws and then circular saws.

All that said I own one a SawStop and am 100% happy with it. I'd rather not see them disappear.

 

[jimbo51]

As noted above, the Volvo comparison is not valid. Volvo made cars of which one small component was the seat belt. They still made a lot of money selling their cars. When Sawstop started, all it had was the patents on the safe stop technology. Why should he give away all the time, effort and money which had been invested up to that point? He tried to license the technology at reasonable fees, but the other companies declined.

The indemnification issue is huge. Under some state laws, if one party to a lawsuit is liable for 1% of the fault, then that party can be held liable for all the costs if the other parties cannot pay. The original Ryobi suit shows how people can totally ignore all rules and the company can still be sued for damages. 

I do not know how fast a Sawstop can stop, but if someone took all the guards off a saw, slipped and fell into a running saw head first, they might get hurt. Under indemnification rules Sawstop could have been liable for most of the damages. No wonder they opted out of that deal.

In regard to the Reaxx, it does not matter if a company has a pallet of 20 saws sitting in their warehouse. One injunction and that pallet could still there unopened for months or even be returned to Bosch for deportation or destruction.

I hope that Bosch and Sawstop reach a cross licensing deal. If they do, then I predict that the days of cheap job site saws are numbered. Once there are two players in the field, the the argument of an established safety standard really starts to take hold and companies that do not offer the technology will become even more vulnerable to lawsuits.

 

[Holmz]

Luckily this has no bearing outside north america. Rest of the world can rejoice.

Volvo thought the safety of the general population was more important. And since its introduction the seat belt has saved countless lives. Sawstop doesn't seem to have the same interest in saving people from injury.

Not a reasonable comparison. There are a few more cars on the road than there are table saws in shops.
...

How does sales volume change the reasonableness of the comparison?

If they were comparing Volvo's seatbelt for motorcycles, or SawStops for routers...

 

[chrisrosenb]

Back when the SawStop first came out, I was told by a SawStop rep that the system they used to set off the brake was the technology used in GFI outlets.

 

[Cheese]

Back when the SawStop first came out, I was told by a SawStop rep that the system they used to set off the brake was the technology used in GFI outlets.

Well then, doesn't that present a wide open field to the potential competitors? Unless, of coarse, SawStop has hired a particularly crafty, and tenacious patent attorney, which sadly seems to be the case. [sad]

 

[tjbnwi]

Back when the SawStop first came out, I was told by a SawStop rep that the system they used to set off the brake was the technology used in GFI outlets.

Well then, doesn't that present a wide open field to the potential competitors? Unless, of coarse, SawStop has hired a particularly crafty, and tenacious patent attorney, which sadly seems to be the case. [sad]

The Saw Stop owner is the attorney.

Tom

 

[Cheese]

The Saw Stop owner is the attorney.

Ahhhh...the light bulb just went on. So in other daily venues of life, this could be considered a conflict of interest?

 

[tjbnwi]

The Saw Stop owner is the attorney.

Ahhhh...the light bulb just went on. So in other daily venues of life, this could be considered a conflict of interest?

I don't see how protecting you're company would be a conflict of interest.

Steve Gass (Saw Stop owner) is a patent attorney.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SawStop

Tom