Just saw this on the Consumerist – Home Depot lost a lawsuit and was ordered to pay $25 million for copying a saw guard invention that it refused to buy for use in its stores.
Home Depot Called Arrogant and Ordered to Pay Inventor Millions
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Putnameco
I wish I could have found more info on the saw guard itself, as a way to prevent getting my fingers sawn off sounds more interesting than another lawsuit.
Stuart
I have searched a bit, but couldn’t really find much.
From the sounds of it, the invention was either a newer/safer type of panel saw, or an adaptation for existing saws. At $2,000 each, the “gadget now affixed to radial saws” may have been the entire machine.
IndyEngineer
Little Guy – 1
Home Depot – 0
JD
It’s not over until payday.
teicher
Wonder if the executive who uttered those words is still at Home Depot, or if he/she have long since moved on to ruin another company.
uthscsaedu
I’m also interested in the guard.
Is it the same guy that makes the guard for table saws?
I bet if you want to see the guard up close, you could go to your local home depot to see if it’s installed.
Benjamen Johnson
I’m suspicious of this story, there has got to be more to it than they are reporting. They call it a simple, yet ingenious, but they guy wanted to charge $2000 for it. Just because he was the little guy and Home Depot is the huge company doesn’t make him the hero and Home Depot the evil corporation. Maybe they drew a clueless judge. It’ll be even more interesting if this holds up under appeal.
I wonder how obvious it was. Knowing how the patent office basically lets anything slide by I wonder if it’s something obvious enough that anybody who looked at a radial arm saw would have thought of it.
Stuart
There definitely is more going on than is being reported, and the media has sided heavily against Home Depot.
I cannot exactly pull the court papers, and still cannot find additional info about the “Safe Hands” device.
An update with a little more info has been posted this morning.
Joe Neilson
Most all of these hardware corporations act this way. Ace Hardware operates unethically also.
Kevin Johnson
*comment removed by TG*
RS
Good to know that nobody is above the law.