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Important Decision From The Us Supreme Court That Relates To Frankenpens


amberleadavis

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Now, don't let this post degenerate into a political debate. This is sort of an update for those of us who have created Frankenpens.

So, let's start with Frankenpens. Now, I know it isn't fair to the "Monster" since the Doctor is really Frankenstein, but let's go with the analogy. For example, some pen turners have modified pens to create new "Frankenpens" and some non pen turners have created some great pens from parts of other pens with no new parts (I'm thinking of _InkyFingers Sheaffer nibs on TWSBI bodies). So, essentially, Frankenpens are pens made from the parts of other pens.

What you may not have known is that some people have received cease and desist letters from pen companies telling the pen turner *or end user* to stop modifying the pens because modifying the pens violates the intellectual property rights of the pen manufacturer. Personally, I've been prepared to defend these suits in my home state, but so far, no law suits have been filed.

WELL..... in a landmark decision, Impression Products Inc. V. Lexmark, 581 U.S. ___ (2017), the US Supreme Court came down heavily on the side of consumers.


a patentee who sells a product with an express restriction on reuse or resale may not enforce that restriction through an infringement lawsuit, because the U. S. sale exhausts the U. S. patent rights in the product


This ruling means that even if the patentee originally restricted re-use or resale of an item, you the consumer can modify it any way you want.

Chief Justice John Roberts went on to say, "that overbroad applications of patent rights were unfair to consumers, limited their ability to use their devices as they see fit and would "clog the channels of commerce, with little benefit from the extra control that the patentees retain."

 

So, I think that this decision means that you can keep modifying your pens, hot rodding your car, mixing your inks AND maybe you can unlock that cell phone.

Fountain pens are my preferred COLOR DELIVERY SYSTEM (in part because crayons melt in Las Vegas).

Create a Ghostly Avatar and I'll send you a letter. Check out some Ink comparisons: The Great PPS Comparison 

Don't know where to start?  Look at the Inky Topics O'day.  Then, see inks sorted by color: Blue Purple Brown Red Green Dark Green Orange Black Pinks Yellows Blue-Blacks Grey/Gray UVInks Turquoise/Teal MURKY

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Didn't know that had been considered c&d worthy, but it's nice to it come down on the consumer side.

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👍😎

Brad

"Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind" - Rudyard Kipling
"None of us can have as many virtues as the fountain-pen, or half its cussedness; but we can try." - Mark Twain

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Interesting. I seem to recall a thread just a week or two ago about someone getting grief for just this sort of thing. Glad to know that the Supreme Court has come down on that person's side. Because if you think about it, in a way it's like buying a hot dog and then adding ketchup to it.... Or, whatever company invented the recipe for the potato salad both my grandmothers used to make (and trust me, they had to have gotten it from some third source because one lived in NYC most of her adult life and the other was from West Virginia) coming down on ME because I use new red potatoes in my version of it).

I suspect that previously, the patent was enforceable only if a pen with a replacement nib was sold as mint (I bought a Laidtone Duofold a couple of months ago for cheap in an antiques store about an hour and a half from where I live, and it wasn't till I got home that I realized it had a Sheaffer #2 nib on it. :rolleyes: Got the pen repaired down out the Triangle Pen Show in June, and for the moment am keeping the Sheaffer nib on it, because once rehabbed, the pen works well. Maybe someday I will decide to swap it out for an actual Parker nib, but for the time being it amuses me.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

ETA: I do suppose, though, that companies might still be able to refused to repair such a modified pen on the grounds that it voids the warranty, but that's a different issue.

Edited by inkstainedruth

"It's very nice, but frankly, when I signed that list for a P-51, what I had in mind was a fountain pen."

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I’ve stuck an Aikin-Lambert Lambert dip nib in a Mabie Todd ringtop. I’m glad to know that they can’t sue me.

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Always good to have a resident lawyer to disungobbledegook the law. Thank you Amber.

And I'm glad because it means that when we buy a pen, a mobile phone, a PC etc then it is our to do as we wish. If the law hadn't have been dismissed then anything we 'bought' was effectively only loaned to us.

 

I wonder how, if the rule was enforced, how pen companies would stop people from modifying their pens.

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Good to know!

PAKMAN

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They would sue people like me out of existence.

Unless you're selling them they wouldn't have any means of knowing, unless they resorted to placing a telescreen in every room in every house.

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Unless you're selling them they wouldn't have any means of knowing, unless they resorted to placing a telescreen in every room in every house.

 

We are all actively tracked through our browsers. Don't discuss what you are doing within earshot of Alexa & the like, including newer TV sets, or your phone. So...

 

But yes, overall how would they know I'm using an alternative cap on my pen? or have turned it into an eyedropper.... Or mixed inks from a different manufacturer? Or bragged about it here....

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I could understand that the manufacturer would not like to have the "modified" item represented as its product. However, in regard to private use and private exchange, I don't see that they would have any standing.

 

On the other hand, somebody has failed to understand the elemental American psyche. We are 320 million people, from every nation and culture on earth, speaking countless languages and dialects. The only universal commonality, that I have found among Americans, is

" We don't like being told what to do ! "

 

It is not difficult to make rules for me. It is simply useless. :P

Auf freiem Grund mit freiem Volke stehn.
Zum Augenblicke dürft ich sagen:
Verweile doch, du bist so schön !

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But yes, overall how would they know I'm using an alternative cap on my pen? or have turned it into an eyedropper.... Or mixed inks from a different manufacturer? Or bragged about it here....

Oh dear, I think I may be due for 5 years in jail if I were in the US for the heinous crime of swapping Platinum nibs, modifying numerous others. I may be eligible for parole in 2022 as I stopped short of buying an MB who would have thrown the book at me for attempting to get their nibs to write.

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Oh dear, I think I may be due for 5 years in jail if I were in the US for the heinous crime of swapping Platinum nibs, modifying numerous others. I may be eligible for parole in 2022 as I stopped short of buying an MB who would have thrown the book at me for attempting to get their nibs to write.

 

:lticaptd:

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

"It's very nice, but frankly, when I signed that list for a P-51, what I had in mind was a fountain pen."

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Oh dear, I think I may be due for 5 years in jail if I were in the US for the heinous crime of swapping Platinum nibs, modifying numerous others. I may be eligible for parole in 2022 as I stopped short of buying an MB who would have thrown the book at me for attempting to get their nibs to write.

 

Smooth a nib - go to jail! (Using a brown paper bag is a misdemeanor, micromesh, a felony. Keep your pen brethren honest - report them for the common good; see something, say something!)

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I wonder if this covers selling a box that sending came in without that thing that came on the box. Kinda simple in that I own the box.

Peace and Understanding

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Thinking more broadly --

 

  1. Can I modify that pen (i.e. change the nib, or even change the shape of the nib) and then sell it on to another person?
  2. What are the implications for the 'you can't reverse-engineer' clauses in software? Can I legally change my copy of MS Office so it always says it is activated? For example, Apple modified ITC Garamond by making it 20% narrower, and called it Apple Garamond. Is this now legal?

fpn_1412827311__pg_d_104def64.gif




“Them as can do has to do for them as can’t.


And someone has to speak up for them as has no voices.”


Granny Aching

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