Patents and publications for Hi-fi audio

[napovo]

Hi all,
I am doing a little research on the published patents for hi-fi audio. It seems that the well known companies did not submit many of them. So I have a few questions, hope to share and have your discussion.

1. What would be the reason that the hi-fi audio company did not submit patents for their high value products? 1.1 Is it too costly?
1.2 They do not care about it because their name plate on the product is more important?
1.3 The hi-fi tech evolution is too fast ?

2. How do they protect their intellectual properties and inventions?
2.1 They dont need protection, as point 1.2
2.2 They encased the IC, chip so no one can do a copy

3. I think it is not beneficial to the humanity and community that many inventions were not published and patented. Because when the patent expired, you and me, the DIY community and amateurs can find the documents and make a product for yourself. Without the publication, all those resources will go to dust.
What do you think about this.

Thank you and welcome to all comments.

 

[RossW]

You hit on a lot of the important points already.

Yes, patent cost is a real issue, especially for smaller manufacturers. And what do you get for all that money? Honestly, not much. You get the right to defend your patent in court. A legal battle is a great way to spend even more money with no guarantee of success. Not to mention oversees manufacturers care very little about patent protection.

A patent needs to be pretty specific, you're basically outlining what you're doing and how you're doing it. It's a weird system when you think about it, you're saying I have this cool technology that is critical to my success, and in order to prevent people from copying it I need to publicly release the details of its design. This is where trade secrets come in. You don't get to sue people, but you don't have to tell anyone anything. In many cases this is a much better way to protect your IP. Most of the people you see filing patents are either large companies with huge legal teams or startups who need an impressive patent portfolio to attract investors (VCs love patents).

Honestly a lot of stuff in the audio world has been done already. Changing the amount of feedback, using boutique components, etc. aren't things you can patent. There are a lot of products that are damned close to a straight datasheet implementation of the components, especially now with Class D. 99% of the time people aren't inventing new gain stages, they're tweaking existing designs.

Part number washing is a part of it (either removing the part numbers, or ordering them without markings, which you can do if you're ordering tens of thousands of a particular part). Name recognition is another big part. Anyone with enough patience could reverse engineer a Krell or a Pass Labs amp, but to what end? If it's not a Krell it won't command Krell prices.

To your last point, businesses do not care. They exist to make money, they very explicitly do not want people to be able to duplicate their stuff or even service it. There are definitely exceptions (Nelson Pass for example is pretty free with his knowledge), but they are few and far between.

 

[napovo]

Thank you Ross for your sharing.
It is unfortunate that the patenting is not beneficial much to the hi-fi audio technology, because I think most of hi-fi audio manufacturers are small business.

Can you elaborate more why do the venture capitals love patents? I actually have a few of innovative idea in audio and I have a plan to build up a startup. So I am searching about the IP protection for startup.

In term of technology, I am not in the audio and electronical engineering but I think there are always new innovations, especially in digital technologies. And the digital techs are really hard to copy.

Is there a IP market where the inventors sell their idea, prototype, to the interested manufacturers?

Thank you

 

[RTally]

Hi all,
I am doing a little research on the published patents for hi-fi audio. It seems that the well known companies did not submit many of them. So I have a few questions, hope to share and have your discussion.

1. What would be the reason that the hi-fi audio company did not submit patents for their high value products? 1.1 Is it too costly?

In order to get a patent there must be an invention that is new and not obvious based on what has come before. The lack of patents may be more indicative of lack of invention than any of the reasons you state above.

Speakers, for example, have been protected by many patents, but those patents were back in the early days. Crack open a new, modern speaker and you will not really see anything that has not already been done for the past 20 to 40 years. (Generally, using a different material is not patentable unless that material was previously thought unsuitable.) That is not to say that speaker companies are not getting patents. Pioneer recent patented a new speaker design.

As for equipment manufacturers, most of the patents are for the underlying technology, not necessarily for the equipment that is assembled from manufactured components. For example, AV receivers use HDMI technology, which has many patents granted to the manufacturers that make the chips, cables, connectors, etc. The companies making AV receivers likely have many licenses to use patented technology and, for the components bought from the patent owner/licensee, they are free to use the components as they wish.

 

[RTally]

Hi all,
I am doing a little research on the published patents for hi-fi audio. It seems that the well known companies did not submit many of them. So I have a few questions, hope to share and have your discussion.

1. What would be the reason that the hi-fi audio company did not submit patents for their high value products? 1.1 Is it too costly?
1.2 They do not care about it because their name plate on the product is more important?
1.3 The hi-fi tech evolution is too fast ?

2. How do they protect their intellectual properties and inventions?
2.1 They dont need protection, as point 1.2
2.2 They encased the IC, chip so no one can do a copy

3. I think it is not beneficial to the humanity and community that many inventions were not published and patented. Because when the patent expired, you and me, the DIY community and amateurs can find the documents and make a product for yourself. Without the publication, all those resources will go to dust.
What do you think about this.

Thank you and welcome to all comments.

I suggest defining what you mean by HiFi companies and HiFi products. Some, but not many HiFi companies manufacture their own components, but most of the not-huge companies purchase components from others. Are you talking about patents on HiFi products or components used by HiFi companies? Are you interested in HUGE companies or the smaller outfits?

1. Getting a patent in the US costs about $12 to $20,000. For any profitable company, the cost of getting a patent is inconsequential. For smaller companies, the decision to get a patent is often based on building business assets and not necessarily on protecting IP through enforcement.

1.3: HiFi technology is NOT moving too fast. The computer industry moves quickly. HiFi tech, apart from the digital aspects, moves more like a glacier. Audio is a mature industry. Many speakers sold today are almost the same was what was sold 20 to 30 years ago. Amplifiers have not really changed other than the components being used. If anything, the chips may be patented, but the chip manufacturer typically owns those patents. That being said, I see patents being granted at the component level for HiFi products, such as headphone suspension systems, earpieces, etc.

2. Intellectual Property (IP) comes in 4 flavors: patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets.
Patents require inventions and I do not see much invention in today's HiFi Products. I do see innovation on the components inside HiFi products, but the IP related to those components may not necessarily be owned by the maker of the HifFi product. Keep in mind, invention requires more than just buying off-the-shelf components and assembling a product.
What HiFi innovations do you see?

(also 1.2) Trademarks offer strong protection for a long product cycle. For example, Pioneer has a trademark for their Elite product line. Also, trademarks are best suited to protect the reputation of companies. Many HiFi companies sell product based on their reputation.

Copyright protection applies primarily to the creative content related to HiFi (songs and music). When it comes to manufactured products, copyright protection offers very little, if any, protection.

Trade secrets don't work well to protect products. Trade secrets are best for protecting processes and methods that cannot be reverse engineered, like the recipe for coke.