The new Bosch Reaxx table saw, with flesh-detection technology, has been delayed. You might have already assumed as much, given its original Fall of 2015 launch expectations.
This doubt could be due to the ongoing SawStop vs. Bosch lawsuit.
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I reached out to a Bosch media contact, to see if there was any updated, and all they are able to pass on is that the saw is “Expected [to launch] in 2016.”
From what I can tell, the saw’s technology is different enough from SawStop’s to avoid infringement, but that’s based solely on what I’ve read. I’d need to study a few years of law, re-review SawStop’s patents, and break both brands’ portable saws apart, and I still might not know for sure.
Hopefully we’ll see the Bosch Reaxx saw in coming months.
Infringement Lawsuit Readings
I spent about some time last night, trying to see if there were any public updates about the infringement case.
There’s not much I learned about the current case, aside from Bosch’s official response to the original complaint, directed to the United States International Trade Commission (PDF here).
It was actually helpful for me, to read more about SawStop’s history, and re-reading the complaint, I can’t say I blame them for filing the suit against Bosch. Whether or not Bosch is found guilty of infringement, it seems that SawStop had no choice, if this part of their complaint is fully accurate:
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Shortly after SawStop released its Jobsite Saw, it learned from potential
distributors that Proposed Respondents were intending to sell a competing table saw with active injury mitigation technology into the bench top market this fall. As discussed below, Proposed Respondents have demonstrated this saw at domestic trade shows and on the internet, and offer it for sale through a distributor, although it is not yet in stock for purchase. SawStop has repeatedly heard dealers say they are not going to offer SawStop’s Jobsite Saw and instead wait for the forthcoming saw from Proposed Respondents because of Proposed Respondents’ dominant presence in the power tool market. See Exhibit 17.
(Bold emphasis is my own.)
If true, dealers not carrying SawStop’s offering to save space or buying power for Bosch’s saw would have cost SawStop not only lost sales, but maybe even the R&D they did in designing the new Jobsite Saw.
Maybe it was a “sue or lose anyway” situation as SawStop’s portrayal of the situation suggests.
There are other interesting tidbits to the case, with one more accessible document found in this list, such as a request by Bosch’s counsel for the US International Trade Commission’s Judge to deny SawStop’s counsel’s request for paper copies of their prototype saw’s source code and electronic copies of files that describe what it all means.
Bosch’s response seems to be “hey, you could inspect it anytime you want, but no way do we want you to have hard copies of our source code and algorithms!”
Table Saw Injury Lawsuits
In looking at other lawsuit documents unrelated to this infringement case, I found many instances where injured parties made arguments that a saw was negligently defective because it lacked SawStop-like flesh-detection and blade-stopping technology.
SawStop’s Stephen Gass’s name comes up sometimes, and there is an expert witness, Darry Robert Holt, whose name also comes up a lot.
In the lawsuit documents where Holt was an expert witness brought forth by the defense, there are all kinds of opinions and discussions about how SawStop or SawStop-like technology might have helped prevent injury. Pretty much everything Holt says is challenged by defendant tool brands.
In one case, the saw blade’s height was raised to 2″ to cut 1/4″ board material, but the focus of the case was on whether the blade guard design was defective or flesh-detection technology could or should have been available. In that case, kickback had unfortunately led to contact with the saw blade and traumatic amputation of several fingers.
Here’s a list of documents for that case, a long reading about Holt’s expert opinion to it, and a following brief which makes me wish I had a bowl of popcorn and full access to the documents and transcripts of that case. That document says things like:
While Bosch has no intention of suggesting any conspiratorial relationship between Plaintiff’s counsel and Mr. Holt, the fact that Mr. Holt has been retained by Plaintiff’s counsel in numerous cases and has been paid a significant sum as a result is relevant and goes to Mr. Holt’s bias.
There is a Woodworking and Power Tool Product Liability Case Update (PDF link) by a law firm, and it condenses details about several cases in one place. If you visit no other external link, check out that one.
There’s also a summary of a Ryobi lawsuit, where it says some more about Holt the expert witness:
Although the defendants called him an “expert for hire” whose opinions were “generated solely for the purpose of litigation,”…
There are also references in a couple of cases about Stephen Gass testifying in prior years, but it seemed he refused to testify in more recent cases.
References to SawStop and similar flesh-detection technology has been intertwined in table saw injury lawsuits for years now.
Back in 2010, we talked about Bosch and Ryobi suits. One of the complaints and accusations brought up against Bosch was that:
they colluded with their competitors… to keep those [flesh-detection and blade brake] alternatives off the market.
I can definitely see why Bosch sought to develop their own flesh-detection table saw – they were practically pushed to do so by litigation!
Some of these readings make my head spin.
I don’t quite know what to think about SawStop anymore. They’ve been painted as a bullyied victim and also a lawsuit-happy aggressor in years of media coverage. Maybe if I read more of the lawsuit history, it’ll bring their true nature to the surface.
Who knew there was so much drama?
Derek
If I was Bosch, once I won this lawsuit I’d drop the price to $400 and put SawStop out of business.
Stuart
SawStop still makes contractor and cabinet saws.
SawStop’s larger saws also have a proven history of quality.
Jay
Yep. And thats what they and others will do.
Jay
Take a moment and Google NPR Sawstop. NOT a fan of NPR but many articles here …. “The Gov’t must protect the People”…. See also Inez Tenenbaum, chairwoman of the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission, who has met with people who have suffered injuries while using table saws. Obviously, common sense is not so common.
Nathan
I don’t have an issue with Saw Stop suing Bosch or any other company for making a product that work in striking similarity if not exactly like their product. And without further actual information on the differences that is how I view the situation.
Where I blame them, and the owner more specifically is their back door attempts to regulate their product on an industry, and their supposed blackmail attempts to coerce various companies to license their design.
I’m also not 100% sold on products that remove the operators responsibility from the equations. Not saying a saw stopping device isn’t a good idea – but it could and would in my opinion – lead to operators using them recklessly assuming the new feature will “save them”. I’m not a fan of the saw stop design or the additive cost, since for what the thing does it should be a bit cheaper than it was sold.
However I know I’m an odd duck in a ocean of lemmings.
Diplomatic Immunity
You’re not an odd duck. I am in total agreement with you. To have a patent like this and then to try and get the industry regulated to use said patent so they will have to pay a fee to you is modern day crony capitalism or corporatism in a nutshell. If they cared so much about people losing fingers then they would have made it an open patent. This is why I can’t stand our current patent system.
And yeah I also agree that this tech will just make people more reckless around a table saw. I was reading a lawsuit filed against Ryobi a few years back in which a new carpenter was told by his boss to use their Ryobi table saw. Well apparently one of them took the handguard off at some point and this newbie used it that way. Needless to say he had a bog down on some wood and kept trying to force the wood through like a dumbass and ended up slicing off part of his pinky. He needed something like 93 sessions of rehabilitation and so many surgeries. The guy ended up getting awarded something like $1.2 million by a stupid jury for what in essence was his own stupidity. Made me sick.
Toolfreak
Sawstop always had the option of offering to license the tech at a reasonable price.
If you abuse a patent to try and extort other manufacturers into paying more than something is worth on the market, you can hardly complain when they come up with tech that works around the patent – or something even better.
Bryan
Im sure that when the airbags came out in cars, that ppls were not tempted to drive them wreklessly, assuming the new feature would “save them”
Ruel Smith
No, but many thought they no longer needed their seat belt! It took awhile before people understood you need both.
Jon
Gass’ and SawStop’s efforts to legislate the adoption of their technology is despicable. I don’t care how great their products are (and I’ve used multiple models, and I can attest that they work very well, both in regular use and in preventing injury), their tactics are not ones I feel I can support with a single dime.
I can’t see any article on this subject without repeating my statement, that someone needs to adopt David Butler’s Whirlwind technology and use it in an entire range of power tools. And I don’t think any organization in the world is better positioned to take advantage of it than Craftsman. It would help make them truly relevant again (assuming they actually couple the safety technology with decent tools; otherwise there’s no point in even making new tools in the first place), and they already have good distribution channels.
Check it out, and maybe take a minute to drop David a line to reiterate my suggestion that he create a simple mailing list (using a free service such as https://www.tinyletter.com/) for people to sign up to be notified when the technology is available for purchase. That list could become an invaluable tool for the sale or licensing of his designs, and it would make it easier for those of us who are anxious to own it to actually get ahold of it and take advantage of the increased safety it provides.
http://www.whirlwindtool.com/
And tell others about it as well. Even if SawStop can get someone to hear their desperate claims that Bosch is infringing on their patents (when it is quite clear that they are not, as the mechanisms are profoundly different), there is no chance that they could claim ownership of the even more novel Whirlwind design. And unlike both SawStop and Reaxx designs, Whirlwind can be added to existing tools and works for far more than just table saws.
Brian C
In reply to Nathan and the comment I’m also not 100% sold on products that remove the operators responsibility from the equations
Do you have an Air Bag in your car ? Do you drive like a lunatic because you do??
No you dont. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You still need to use common sense and proper table saw safety as any other saw.
It does not do it for you.
The Sawstop only helps when you have that moment of broke concentration so you dont get to loose a body part
Brian
Am I reading this right that people have injured themselves on regular table saws and they are suing the manufacturer because it isn’t a SawStop? And the SawStop guy is helping them??
What????!!!
Stuart
I don’t think the SawStop guy is helping them. There are references to testimonies he gave in previous lawsuits, but I couldn’t find those cases online.
I think I read in one reverence that the expert witness visited SawStop and reviewed their technologies, but other than that there’s no known connection between him and the company.
Brian
Oh i see. I misread that then. It still seems very stupid to sue a table saw company because they don’t have SawStop tech.
BikerDad
The theory is that the company is liable because they CHOSE to not have the technology, i.e. they deliberately put a product on the market that is much more dangerous that it otherwise could be…
Any suit that goes after a company for a saw built before the mid-90s should get dismissed in a pre-trial motion, as the technology wasn’t even on the horizon. Any suit that goes after a company for a saw brought to market AFTER they turned down SawStop’s tech? Based on current product liability theory, it will have a good chance of winning and almost certainly will be heard.
Mind you, I subscribe to the theory that it’s the tablesaw’s job to cut things, and it’s your job to keep things you don’t want cut out of the way. So it’s not a product liability when you run your own digits through the blade, the machine is doing what it’s designed to do, cut things. Product liability would be a bad switch that turns the machine on when the machine is jostled, or a blade that comes flying off because someone at the factory threaded the arbor wrong, or cast iron wings that fall on your feet because the design engineers lost out to shipping bean counters and made the edges of the table and wings too thin so one or both fail catastrophically after a few hours of run time.
It will be interesting, as well as slightly depressing, to see this play out. I wouldn’t be surprised if SawStop isn’t angling for a outcome that will give them some sort of interest in Bosch’s tech going forward, because the Bosch tech is easily applied to more types of power tools than SawStop’s, and the SS patents don’t have a lot of time left.
Diplomatic Immunity
Damn that’s depressing. Now we have liability for a product that works correctly and does what it’s supposed to do? Bloody hell. If I was a juror on that Ryobi case I would have immediately said Ryobi is not liable considering the device worked how it should and your employer removed the safety guard. Should be looking at the guy that removed the blade guard.
It pisses me off when people are inept and hurt themselves and then get rewarded for being inept when they sue a company.
JMG
A really good attorney using good charismatic witness’, as well as seemingly solid evidence, is capable of bending a jury’s attitude in support of his/her arguments, even when common sense might dictate otherwise.
It would not necessarily have to have been an issue of a company not using saw stop tech, but could have been an argument about design liability relating to the tool being allowed to operate with the safety features having been disabled (i.e. no kill system engineering), that could have tipped a decision in their favor.
No matter what it was that may have caused stupidity to be rewarded, the fact remains that in the long run those legal costs will be passed along to the rest of us consumers in some form, and that is what I find depressing about the issue.
Brandon
“S**Stop has repeatedly heard dealers say they are not going to offer SawStop’s Jobsite Saw and instead wait for the forthcoming saw from Proposed Respondents because of Proposed Respondents’ dominant presence in the power tool market.”
So, S**stop is suing a competing company because dealers who sell the products they both make are making rational business decisions? Sounds like another attempt by S**stop to litigate their business into profitability.
Stuart
That is only one part of the complaint. They’re suing for alleged patent infringememt.
pencil neck
May as well sue my Granny for all the capacitance touch lights in her home as well.
Sawstop doesn’t want a free market for a concept. I hope they go down in flames.
Jon
I’ll second that.
BikerDad
The “holding out for the competing company’s offering” is in there as a demonstration of damages. SawStop is showing that it has lost revenue due to the alleged patent infringement.
Jon
Agreed. This is their tactic, and it is a proven one. But their core complaint that they own the idea of preventing injury and/or capacitive sensing, is fundamentally false. That’s not how they have phrased it, but it is the core of their argument. Once we all pay for the legal process to get around to sorting through it and that is clear beyond all legal maneuvering and nuance, I hope Bosch buries SawStop with a counter suit to cover their legal fees, plus damages due to the exact delays that SawStop claims they themselves suffered. Because Karma.
JMG
I spent nearly four and a half years of my life involved in a personal injury litigation. There were many times during the trial that resembled an American soap opera and could have been somewhat comedic if not for the serious nature of the suit.
One of the main points in education that I received is that there is much that is negotiated out of the courtroom prior to trial that the jury and public will never be privy to. What ends up as an argument in the court room itself is full of limitations or boundaries for discussion that sometimes boggle the mind.
It is no surprise to me that there is a lack of information to be had on the subject of the actual lawsuit, and it is necessary to maintain the cloak to protect the proceedings. Making any personal judgements of the parties involved, prior to the conclusion of the issue, is doing a disservice to any of the participants. After the litigation concludes and the after trial transcripts become available (if they ever do), you may then be able to arrive at an informed opinion about the two companies involved.
The media, and other arm chair pundits, that broadcast a so called accurate bias of the process prior to its conclusion, do nothing but annoy me in the extreme. I personally will wait for the judgement to conclude before attempting to assigning any blame or other attitude to the overall process.
Jon
And yet your own account of your own experience identifies some of the fundamental failings of that very system in which you are placing all of your trust. Fascinating.
fred
I guess we will see how long this drags out in the courts. I can see arguments on both sides of the case – and it will be for the courts to sort it out. It is a bit odd (IMO) that no company saw fit to license the Saw Stop technology – perhaps because the terms being asked were onerous – but I think still a bit odd.
Also of note was that a Sawstop contractor saw made an appearance on a recent episode of This Old House. Tom Silva demonstrated the “hot dog test”
BikerDad
“It is a bit odd (IMO) that no company saw fit to license the Saw Stop technology – perhaps because the terms being asked were onerous – but I think still a bit odd.”
The general sense is that the biggest reason for not licensing it wasn’t onerous royalties, nor Gass’s reputed shortcomings.
It was the fact that EVERY single unsold machine of a manufacturer out on the market would instantly become an enormous liability risk (can you say “total recall”?), and they would have to completely redesign every saw in their lineups in order to incorporate the technology. It’s questionable whether the little benchtop saws even CAN use the tech, as the stresses incurred by the machines when the brake fires are far beyond what any current benchtop unit is designed to handle. So any company adopting the tech would have had to deal with all the unsold now “unsafe” machines, as well as essentially absence themselves from the tablesaw market until they could bring their new “safe” machines to market.
Bosch and Hitachi may be the only companies (being that powertools are a small part of their portfolios) that are large enough to handle the inherent costs in that scenario. I doubt if any of the “large” stationary tool manufacturers could have / can do so, because they’re actually pretty small potatoes. Bosch’s R&D spending alone is larger than the annual size of the “woodworking stationary power tool” market and is roughly 20% the size of the global power tool market.
Todd H.
Bosch saw is MUCH better, it doesn’t destroy the blade like saw stop does, so all you have to buy is their cartridge and not a new blade too. Bosch is a way better and way more innovative saw. Saw Stop is NOT looking out for people’s safety, he’s looking to price rape everyone.
Harley
Have you had any hands on experience with the Bosch saw, or are your comments based on product literature?
Jon
I met with a couple of Bosch reps (an engineer and a marketing rep) last June and they confirmed the design of the saw, which was very thoroughly demonstrated in videos. You don’t have to read product literature to see the fundamental difference.
Further actual, independent contractors were enlisted to field-test the units (as was the case with the SawStop jobsite design). Their reports were consistent with Bosch’s own video. So unless the only scenario in your world in which someone may have an informed opinion is through extensive personal use, I’d say the whole “hands on experience” card is unnecessary.
Toolfreak
Still seems to me the Sawstop guy could have made zillions by just licensing the tech to all the major manufacturers at a nice price, AND secured a legacy as the inventor/proponent of the technology, but nooooooooooooo, he took the low road and went to all the trouble of making a company and his own saws and everything, and then complains when those major manufactuers make something even better at a lower price.
I too, agree that Sawstop should go down in flames, or at least should feel the forces of market pressure to compete and price their products reasonably.
Matt
Actually he attempted to license the technology to the other manufacturers, they all declined because they didn’t believe consumers would want to pay the extra cost for the safety feature, so he had to spend the money to manufacture an entire line of table saws in order to make his invention pay off.
Jon
That was the way their response was stated. In fact it effectively presented them with a scenario in which licensing his technology and adding it to their equipment would mean acknowledging that it was unsafe and thereby exposing themselves to tremendous liability, well beyond what a power tool manufacturer already bears.
Garrick
I certainly have no sympathy for Gass. He says he only cares about making sure everyone is as safe as possible, then tries to stop others from developing competing, or better safety measures. He is a business man and I respect that. And Bosch is a company that I respect as well. But in this case I am concerned about me more than they. I want inexpensive reliable and convenient safety measures of my own choosing. The market needs to be competitive for that to happen. If SawStop is allowed to prevent competition for what seems to be a minor innovative use of available technology, we will all be worse off.
How much does Bosch get for letting everyone use use the 12 volt lithium battery format they came up with? That everyone else was not prevented from using it meant a slew of tool choices from most of the other tool manufacturers… which almost everyone benefited from.
will
The creator of saw stop seems to be a greedy man. He tried to force his saw stop tech onto every company while claiming that he was doing it for safety. Well this here proves that he only cared about the money and not safety otherwise he would want other companies to create there own safety tech.
Grady
Fact #1: Steve Gass originally not wanting to develope a new producthimself, offered to sell his technology to all of the major power tool manufacturer’s . He is due the price of his intellectual data and invention.
Fact #2: The power tool industry conspired against Steve Gass to prevent his technology from being developed because they had nothing to counter with.
Fact #3: Carlos Osorio won a $1.5 million lawsuit against ryobi because they did not have SawStop’s technology, even after testifying he had knowingly & willfully removed all of the safety devices on the saw. Note: SawStop’s flesh detection, blade braking technology can be knowingly and willfully turned off.
Fact#4 Some people are just STUIPID and Nothing can fix that.
BikerDad
Fact #3, in reference to both plaintiff (Osorio) and the jury, serve as proof of Fact #4.
John Blair
Fairness would be if someone disabled the saw stop mechanism and stuck their hand in the blade and won 1.5 million in Damages from SawStop.
Stuart
Even smart people aren’t perfect.
A bright Yale science major died in 2011 after a machine shop accident (https://14cyiuhvcgv.com/lapse-in-machine-shop-safety-leads-to-yale-science-majors-death/%3C/a%3E%29.%3C/p%3E
Accidents can happen, even avoidable and preventable ones.
Toolfreak
The power tool industry CONSPIRED against a person to prevent their technology from being developed? How would they even do that?
Bosch, Ryobi, B&D, et al. control a lot of things, but they don’t control all the engineering or all the manufacturing in the world.
As shown by Sawstops actual development of products, he did indeed develop the tech, he just priced it out the wazoo like the greedy idiot he is and whined about it when the competition showed up, as it eventually always does.
Jon
I have heard the conspiracy claim many times. I’ve yet to see any evidence of it. Have you any? Or is your definition of “fact” rather fluid?
I’m serious. If you are aware of actual evidence of conspiracy there, please let me know.
John Blair
The original claim of Steven Gass was that SawStop technology would license for between 3% and 8% of a saws price and would raise the overall cost of the saw by 20% to 30%.
Given that I can buy a nice contractor saw for $499. If the original statements by Gass when describing to the CPSC were true, the SawStop Jobsite saw should be between $600 and $650. Instead it costs twice that.
Having a Bosch 4000 and looking at the Jobsite model, the SawStop model is much nicer. So I am thinking about buying the SawStop jobsite saw even though the braking mechanism kills the blade. Because when it boils down to it, if the thing fires, I think losing the blade will be a fair price to pay for a nicer saw.
What I would like to see is continual improvement in the technology and the price. Because if it was only 20% to 50% more expensive, I believe adoption would skyrocket!
Jon
You are forgetting that you can buy a nice contractor saw for $499 because the company making it is a large tool manufacturer. The SawStop Jobsite costs much more because the company is much smaller and it costs them much more to make it due to economies of scale.
The real problem is Steven Gass was very greedy and ignorant about how much his invention was really worth. The tool companies didn’t “conspire” against him, what actually happened is free market capitalism worked and no companies saw an economic value in what he was offering at the price offered.
That’s nobodies fault besides his own. After that he decided to attempt to “stick it” to the tool companies by attempting to have his technology mandated by law and that didn’t work either.
tool time
Volvo invented the seat belt for automobiles then allowed every other auto manufacturer to use their seat belt design free of charge!
If Sawstop cared about safety, then their actions should reflect their words.
http://jalopnik.com/volvo-gave-away-their-most-important-invention-to-save-1069825878
bob
volvo’s only business was not seatbelts….sigh. we have a serious modern problem with intellectual property, especially in america.
Jon
A problem which goes both directions.
Matt
There’s a lot of hate out there for sawstop, but there’s also a lot of misinformation, Gass actually tried to license the technology to manufacturers of table saws first, but was rejected by every single one because they didn’t believe consumers would pay the cost for the safety feature (I have no idea what licensing fees he asked for to know if they were reasonable or not), if I developed an invention and no one wanted to license it and I had to drop the $$ to develop and manufacture my own line of table saws, id be pissed as well and work as hard as I could to recoup my investment.
Second, Bosch has a pretty nasty history of stealing tech developments from other companies (specifically American) and using the fact that they are based in Germany to continue to make profit off of it and sell them while litigation is ongoing, unless the other company can get the government to put a hold on sales then Bosch still makes the money even though hey are being sued, and the US government can’t prevent Bosch from selling something in Europe or Asia.
Yes sawstop is aggressive, and maybe the tech shouldn’t be legally required, maybe seatbelt a shouldn’t be either, but vilifying a company because they defend their patents against a company known for stealing technology (Milwaukee/TTI has several lawsuits ongoing against Bosch for this same reason according to my local rep) when we don’t have access to most of the case information seems a bit silly.
Stuart
Here’s a post from 2012: https://14cyiuhvcgv.com/sawstops-stephen-gass-people-who-are-destroying-america/%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
At the time, the situation was messy, and from what I remember reading, Gass and SawStop were attempting to convince the US CPSC to FORCE manufacturers to adopt and license SawStop technology.
I don’t remember exactly, but maybe they were pushing for flesh-detection tech implementation in general. But even if so, any sign of competing technology would have likely resulted in immediate litigation, which is exactly what happened now with SawStop vs. Bosch.
Jon
Any actual documentation, or evidence of any form, of your claims about Bosch? I am genuinely unaware of such issues. I am aware of the tremendous expense Bosch invests in R&D. When they visited me at and guys in the shop where I was working last June to discuss a list of minor design details in their various power tool accessories, I was thoroughly impressed by the depths of their commitment to good design. I spoke with one of their engineers at length about the issue of the velcro on sanding pads for oscillating tools damaging the velcro on the sandpaper long before the paper wears out, for instance.
While it’s certainly possible for the same organization who invests in that (and all the freebies they brought, including my lovely 18v hammer drill) also rips off designs from TTI and others as a matter of regular practice, that doesn’t really feel likely. So please let me know if you are aware of actual documentation there.
As I’m googling the matter I’m only coming up with information about the Black & Decker suit against Bosch regarding radios which are also battery chargers (which it seems they won but eventually all claims were dismissed, or something like that), and Nissan suing Bosch for components which Bosch produced and Nissan purchased and used in their vehicles, which Affinity claims violates their patents and therefore sued most vehicle manufacturers over, leading to that suit by Nissan against Bosch. Every other example I’ve found so far has been Bosch suing others for patent infringement, which is to be expected with a group that size that does that much R&D.
So, yeah, let me know?
Tim Waldvogel
While I wouldnt mind owning a saw stop, I find this safety stuff interesting
90% of people who own a saw stop ALSO own 10-25 MORE dangerous tools that can mangle them
Why take away their concern on a dangerous tool
I disagree with the cars that brake for you as well. Keep yourself safe
The Original SOS
It’s interesting to me, having checked the filings in the lawsuit on PACER two weeks ago, that despite the fact that the case is more than six months old, SawStop had not sought a preliminary injunction to keep the Bosch Reaxx saw off the market until the lawsuit is tried. Interesting strategy. Whether Bosch has voluntarily stopped the introduction of their saw as a result of the suit and thereby saved SawStop the trouble of seeking injunction relief is also an interesting question. All I know is that I’d like to buy the Bosch saw and this delay is frustrating.
Jon
Basically SawStop wants us to boycott them. So lets stop another company from making a safe saw that can save body parts because somebody designed something that serves the same purpose as our product. Forget you greedy SawStop.
Jon
Amen!
Michael Pilliod
As a small business owner, I side with SawStop. The guy is not greedy because he wants to get paid for his work. If you don’t want the tech added to your saw, there are hundreds of other options out there. If you want it, you will pay a premium. The amount of that premium is nothing compared to the loss you could incur without it.
To all of you who call people idiots who are injured, understand that the majority of the injured people were probably saying the same thing before they got comfortable and complacent. To continue the analogy others have use about driving;, buying insurance doesn’t mean you’re not a responsible driver…..
I know some people don’t like forcing extra technology on people but table saws are THE most dangerous consumer product in existence. To not improve them, is ludicrous. The average table saw design hasn’t changed much in 50 years. It’s much more “greedy” to continue profiting off of out dated technology while your customers are repeatedly injuring themselves with your product and then making NO effort to improve.
Stuart
Let’s say there was a new company and they came out with a new safety feature for cars. They approached Ford, GM, Toyota, Honda, and other other makers, trying to sell them the idea on paying a license for the technology.
None of the car companies were interested, and so the company started building their own cars.
Then the new company (unsuccessfully) lobbied consumer interest groups, trying to make it mandatory for other car companies to license their technology.
Then, a few years later, an existing car company came out with a different way to protect drivers from the same hazard.
The company that tried to force other brands to pay for their technology doesn’t like that there’s now competition and sues.
That’s where a lot of sentiments are coming from.
If Bosch is infringing on SawStop’s patents, then they absolutely have a right and obligation to defend their IP.
But is Bosch infringing on SawStop IP? I don’t think so, but it’s not up to me to decide. Maybe they are, maybe they aren’t. Either way, I hope there’s a just outcome.
Jon
Michael, there is a huge amount of information you seem to be unaware of on this issue, most particularly the liability that opens up when manufacturers start including safety technology on their products, as doing so implicitly acknowledges that their previous offerings are unsafe, with countless units already out there. Perhaps as a business owner you can appreciate the difficult situation that every table saw manufacturer has been in there. Unfortunately the real world situation is not so simple as you paint it.
Regardless, attempting to get your product’s universal adoption forced by legislation is a loathsome move. Personally, the small business owner in me has dealt with enough other small businesses to not be willing to automatically give someone the benefit of the doubt just because of their small business status.
Gerry
I’m a bit confused from what I can put together Sawstop are complaining that Bosch are using flesh sensing technology. You have been able to get lights that do that for years, how can that even be a patent?
Brian
Saw Stop’s tech has its place, especially in teaching environments where novices are operating potentially dangerous machines unsupervised. But I just don’t see its usefulness in a jobsite saw. Most of what get’s cut by these portable table saws is construction-grade lumber or sheet goods. Sheet goods are much safer to cut with a guided circular saw, and construction grade lumber from big box retailers is hardly ever dry enough to use a Saw Stop without triggering the safety and ruining the blade. Does anyone think a framing carpenter is going to put a moisture meter on every stick of wood he rips? Does anyone think a contractor is going to discard or return every green board that gets delivered to the jobsite? Saw Stop’s attempt to make their technology required by law (and the positions of the plaintiffs in most of these lawsuits) are totally unreasonable and detatched from any sense of reality about the workings of the industry.
Jon
Does anyone think a framing carpenter is getting his lumber from a big box retailer??? Huh???