9 ms·

Feds Raid Hoverboard Booth at CES

118 points by ted0 11y ago

hkmurakami 11y ago
So a Chinese company knocks off an American company's patented product, ignores the patent holder's correspondence to cease production of the product, then gets their booth shut down forcibly by federal agents who were notified by the patent holder. The headline makes it seem like some grave injustice occurred (and the headline definitely made me open the link in my timeline) but it seems like the patent holder is simply exercising their legal rights here.
- hellbanner 11y ago
  Yes, but how interesting that these patents exist.. I want to hear from the Chinese company. Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on LinkedIn Share on Reddit Share on Google+ E-mail On Thursday afternoon, two U.S. federal marshals showed up at the Consumer Electronics Show to conduct a raid. As a crowd gathered, the marshals packed up a one-wheeled skateboard on display at a Chinese company's booth, as well as a sign and fliers promoting the product, and carried them away. It quickly became clear this wasn't the usual CES publicity stunt. Staffers for the company, Changzhou First International Trade Co., were stunned. Until that moment, Changzhou First International Trade was having a successful day. It wasn’t the only discount electronic skateboard dealer around, but passersby seemed taken by the design of its product, the Trotter. Instead of a board with a wheel on either end, like the popular hoverboards seen around the show, the Trotter looks like a seesaw with one big wheel in the middle. One man with a microphone and a camera stopped to take some footage; another quizzed employees about how fast the thing could go. The booth’s staff had trouble answering even basic questions in English, but they did their best. CES, the world's largest annual gadget conference taking place in Las Vegas this week, has always been full of small-bore dealers, many from China, selling products that look like something you might find in the discount bin at a Best Buy. The Consumer Technology Association, the trade group that puts on the show, welcomes them, as long as they pay the appropriate fees to rent a booth. Unoriginality is not against the rules. But there is a long-running strain of resentment among companies that feel their patents and trademarks are being violated by low-cost competitors. CES's legal department issues guidelines for those who feel wronged, and there’s even a list of rules for face-to-face disputes, including prohibitions on "loud, offensive or embarrassing confrontations" and a limit on the number of people who come along to accuse someone of ripping them off. The CTA asks companies not to bring more than two employees, one translator, and a lawyer. The raid on the show floor, which involved federal law enforcement, was the result of a weekslong effort by Future Motion, a Silicon Valley startup that said it invented and patented a self-balancing electric skateboard that looks strikingly similar to the ones the marshals confiscated. The company sent about a half-dozen people from its legal team to accompany the marshals in the raid. The CTA declined to comment, as did a woman present during the raid who appeared to be in charge of the booth, saying the company intended to consult a lawyer. Lynzey Donahue, a U.S. Marshals official, said marshals served a court order at CES. Future Motion's Onewheel skateboard is the brainchild of Kyle Doerksen, a designer who had previously worked on electric bicycles. Several years ago, Doerksen quit his job at the design company Ideo, made a prototype, and rented a booth at CES 2014. The idea was popular enough that a Kickstarter campaign, launched on the same day, eventually raised $630,000. The following year, Doerksen came back with a more finished model. His company, which decided against getting a booth this year, is in town to meet with potential business partners. Doerksen began the process of patenting aspects of the Onewheel several years ago. In August, Future Motion received a patent for the underlying technology. Earlier this week, it got a second one for the device's design. This patent prohibits competitors from making something that an ordinary observer might confuse with the Onewheel. “Would we have done this without the design patent being issued? The answer is we wouldn’t have bothered,” said Shawn Kolitch, a lawyer for the company. “If you can show the design patent drawing next to an accused product side by side, and they look identical, it helps your case.” Future Motion first found out about the Changzhou First International Trade product late last year, when a Onewheel user posted about it in an online forum. A listing by the Chinese company on Alibaba's online marketplace promised to provide some 2,000 boards per month for about $500 apiece to retailers. (Future Motion sells the Onewheel for $1,500 through its website.) “We said, ‘Wow, that’s clearly a knockoff,’” Doerksen said. According to Alibaba's website, retailers in Iceland, Germany, and the U.S. bought about $70,000 worth of products. In December, Kolitch sent a letter to Changzhou First International Trade demanding that it stop selling the products. He never heard back. Kolitch tried again the day before the show floor opened, by approaching the booth directly but got nowhere. By 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Onewheel filed a request with a judge to stop the Trotters from being displayed on the show floor. The newfangled electronic skateboards that have captured the imagination of geeks recently have been dominated by dozens of off-brand companies. A recent segment on NPR's Planet Money reported how the hoverboard trend has emerged almost spontaneously from dozens of Chinese factories at once. But Shane Chen, a Chinese-American inventor, disputed that idea. He said the so-called hoverboards were his idea. Like Doerksen, Chen is trying to get the government to crack down on his competitors. "After the raid at CES, all the merchandise and signs had been stripped off the booth. The Chinese company's staff sat around, unclear about what to do next. For Doerksen, getting the booth shut down serves not only to cut off what he saw as an illegitimate competitor but also to protect the reputation of the entire electric skateboard industry."
  - wavefunction 11y ago
    So this all rests on a "design patent" rather than an utility patent. It's a disgusting concept in my opinion but I will note that members of the WIPO -- including China -- are obliged to respect them.
  - mintplant 11y ago
    Did you mean to paste the entire text of the article here?
    - fastball 11y ago
      Well his username is "hellbanner". Seems somewhat self-aware.
      - geofft 11y ago
        "Vexilla regis proedunt inferni...."
    - hellbanner 11y ago
      No, I didn't. I meant topaste one specific paragraph.
- duaneb 11y ago
  Really? The headline (currently) reads U.S. Marshals (or Feds) Raid Hoverboard Booth at CES. I don't see any reference to injustice—I generally associate raids with positive busts, which is what makes stuff like raiding the Pirate Bay (albeit different feds) so shocking.
  - wavefunction 11y ago
    I don't associate raids with anything positive necessarily. Sometimes, but not often.
    - duaneb 11y ago
      Not necessarily, no, but it's hardly a negative necessarily either. It's just an event.
      - dagw 11y ago
        Raids that make the news they tend to skew heavily negative. All the normal boring successful raids that happen never make the front page of national news sites.
  - geofft 11y ago
    I associate raids with grenades in toddler's cribs, but I'm glad there are people less jaded than me. http://abcnews.go.com/US/family-toddler-injured-swat-grenade-faces-1m-medical/story?id=27671521 http://abcnews.go.com/US/family-toddler-injured-swat-grenade...
  - davesque 11y ago
    Don't really agree. I feel pretty safe in saying there's a general negative connotation when the words "Feds" and "raid" are present in the same sentence. It may be true that the words themselves don't necessarily mean anything negative, but I bet most people would agree that the tone of the words is negative sounding.
    - derefr 11y ago
- swehner 11y ago
  Maybe you have become inured. But when you get officers removing stuff, you'd better have some solid case. According to the article "By 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Onewheel filed a request with a judge to stop the Trotters from being displayed on the show floor." So how much time was put into making sure there is a solid case? (Legal rights are always relative)
- msie 11y ago
  Saying that the Chinese company is producing a knockoff has yet to be proved. Given the hoverboard craze I am not surprised if the Chinese company has produced something by coincidence that the US company _happens_ to have a patent on.
  - eps 11y ago
    Try and read the article before making abstract comments. It has names and links and it's bloody obvious Chinese is a blantant rip, not a "coincidence."
    - supergirl 11y ago
      How do you know who ripped of whom?
    - msie 11y ago
      The abstract comment is saying that the Chinese company ripped off this particular guy w/o better evidence because it's a Chinese company. When in fact this design has appeared before the US guy "invented" it. I read the article but nothing seemed bloody obvious in terms of a smoking gun.
- deleted 11y ago
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- fab13n 11y ago
  > The headline makes it seem like some grave injustice occurred Because you expect most news about US cops to report abusive behaviors. Whether the problem is with you, with US cops or with news can be debated, but that's clearly the sign of some problem(s). (Just to be clear, I personally don't think you're one of the problems)
11thEarlOfMar 11y ago
The OneWheel is manufactured in Silicon Valley.
staunch 11y ago
Startups that can't compete on product deserve to be beaten in the marketplace. If a Chinese factory can clone your device just by looking at it, you're definitely not doing anything worthy of a patent.
- bigdubs 11y ago
  Downvoted because that is not a reasonable crucible for if something is patentable ("can clone your device just by looking at it"). There is a vast swath of reasonable patents that are easily "copyable" after the fact. If something wasn't easily copyable then you wouldn't need a patent in the first place.
  - Throwaway23412 11y ago
    Airplanes are easily "copyable". That didn't stop the Wright Brothers from patenting the first workable one. And they were engineers, not really entrepreneurs. It would be a shame for the brothers known for giving man the power of flight to never make any money from their achievement.
    - sciguy77 11y ago
      > Airplanes are easily "copyable". You're kidding, right?
      - Throwaway23412 11y ago
        *were easily "copyable". The Wright Brothers had hundreds of competitors at the time. They were also very private during their later attempts to get their flying machine to work, so that they could avoid competitors copying their design.
- carlosdp 11y ago
  That's absurd, it can look the same and still be a crappy product that has issues like the battery blowing up. The consumer might not know the difference between your board and the lower quality one that looks the same on the outside, and when news goes around with a picture of a board that looks exactly like yours, it hurts your product's sales.
soheil 11y ago
For those who wanna see the products side by side: Onewheel (American) [1] Totter (Chinese) [2] [1] http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/gadgetlab/2014/01/1W2_1021.jpg http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/gadgetlab/2014/01/1W2_1021... [2] http://g02.s.alicdn.com/kf/HTB1LWviKFXXXXc3XXXXq6xXFXXXU/Electric-Hoverboard-scooter-one-wheel-with-700W.jpg http://g02.s.alicdn.com/kf/HTB1LWviKFXXXXc3XXXXq6xXFXXXU/Ele...
- morganvachon 11y ago
  If anything, based on these photos the Chinese "knockoff" looks more refined. The Onewheel device pictured in your first link looks like a prototype or at best, a first revision. Then again, maybe they are going for that retro-custom-modded-skateboard look?
  - chasing 11y ago
    The knock-off looks cheaper and more likely to be made of shitty plastic. To my eyes.
    - morganvachon 11y ago
      It probably is cheaper, being a knockoff. My point was more that the Onewheel device looks like something I'd slap together in my workshop out of spare metal brackets and plywood, not something I'd bring to mass market. All that said, I wouldn't ride either one. At my age bones don't heal as fast as they used to.
    - yeukhon 11y ago
      Also more dangerous because of the plastic where feet would be placed. That plastic should not be added for safety reason.
- deleted 11y ago
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droithomme 11y ago
Who is stealing from whom? Future Motion applied for their patent on July 21, 2015 and the application was published and publicly viewable on Nov. 12, 2015. http://www.freshpatents.com/-dt20151112ptan20150323935.php http://www.freshpatents.com/-dt20151112ptan20150323935.php Changzhou First International Trade Co was established in 2011. I wasn't able to tell when they first started selling these scooters. Were they really able to clone a product and get it in stores and demoed at CES between Nov. 12 2015 and today? Amazingly agile if so. And not even addressing the issue that all these products really seem to be violating Dean Kamen's patents.
- koenigdavidmj 11y ago
  NPR's Planet Money podcast released an episode a few weeks ago where they tried to find the original inventor: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/11/27/457404184/episode-666-the-hoverboard-life http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/11/27/457404184/episo...
  - cloudwalking 11y ago
    This is a different kind of hoverboard. One single wheel in the middle, ridden sideways, not wheels on each end ridden forward.
- mattthebaker 11y ago
  It takes a long time to get a patent from application to publication. If you look closer at the patent, what will be considered the priority date for that patent is the date the provisional patent application was filed -- May 6, 2013.
  - droithomme 11y ago
    I agree, however the first date Changzhou could have seen the patent application was its actual date of publication. I am skeptical Changzhou could have gone from reading this application, which is about ideas and not specific implementation and design, to engineering a manifestation of that patent, setting up a production line, testing, marketing, boxing, and selling these products between November and January. I would say that Changzhou has obviously been working on a similar design in parallel. When they started is not clear though. Both are also clearly derivative from, and in violation of, Kamen's patents. There's already several products from other companies that are one wheeled unicycle kamen devices. The hoverboards are mini Segways without the needed handle for stabilization. The more sensible front to back skateboard concept has been discussed in various places. It's not unreasonable to expect that many people were working on the design in parallel. The facts are though that the Chinese company failed to secure a US patent. That is their downfall in the US market. To say they stole the design is premature.
jMyles 11y ago
Whether you believe in the general utility of patents in the information age or not (and to be clear, I don't), this is a good reminder that patents are violence. You can't be truly non-violent and also believe in patents.
- watty 11y ago
  I'm not a fan of patents but I don't understand your comment. What exactly is violent about this?
  - geomark 11y ago
    Patents themselves aren't violent. Patents allow one to invoke violence by the state by having armed men (US marshalls in this case) confiscate property and in some cases arrest people.
    - chasing 11y ago
      Yes. In many cases individuals are allowed to invoke the power of the state. By calling that power "violence" are you arguing that the state should not be able to take action to protect people?
      - geomark 11y ago
        Not arguing for or against anything. Armed men taking property and prisoners is violence regardless if it is sanctioned by the state or not. Civilized society wants that sort of violence if it is applied to violent crime. The same society might debate if that sort of violence is appropriate for other activities.
  - geofft 11y ago
    The only way you can enforce a patent is by having armed law enforcement do so (as they did in this case), or relying on the perception that armed law enforcement could do so. That said, this argument would essentially hold that to live in civilized society (at least, as we understand civilization), to take advantage of tax-funded things like roads, to make use of government-enforced currencies, etc. is also violence. Which might be technically true, but is not useful, and certainly not useful for the goal of getting the rest of the world to be less violent; I know very few people whose brand of non-violence does not involve attempting to stop other people's violence. Indeed, a serious application of this argument would require one not to use the Internet, which was government-funded (i.e., funded by tax dollars, i.e., funded by money taken at implicit threat-of-gunpoint from citizens) out of military budgets (violence incarnate) and is still a bit government-run, and it would certainly require one not to use Hacker News, given how much Y Combinator firmly requires a strong conception of private property. So I think our pal Sonic the Hedgehog's famous quote applies, although the context is slightly different: http://i.imgur.com/wi1QIgG.jpg http://i.imgur.com/wi1QIgG.jpg
soheil 11y ago
Can't help but think part of this must have been a publicity stun, why couldn't they simply deny their application for a booth or discreetly show up in the morning and don't let them setup their booth to begin with?
- mattthebaker 11y ago
  OneWheel does not own or run CES, how would they have the power to deny an application? I agree it would have been a better move if they could have convinced CES to handle the matter quietly. Lots of reasons why that may not have been possible. Whether or not the publicity is even positive for one wheel -- they are seen calling in the feds, being generally litigious, and calling attention to the competitor -- is another question. He was definitely doing his best to spin it positive in the Bloomberg article saying this is good for the marketplace, etc.
  - URSpider94 11y ago
    The CTA (organizers of CES) aren't going to do a thing unless they are served a court order. No way they want to get into the business of arbitrating IP disputes between their thousands of exhibitors!
sauronlord 11y ago
The "inventor" at Onewheel, Kyle Doerksen, quickly changed the conversation to about the 'safety' of 'knockoff' products. What does he know about that? Or is he full of it and just slandering another company with a product that looks like "his"? Disgusting attitude for an "inventor". Hello!!! McFly!! The inventor of the Segway, Kamen, and the inventor of the unicycle, Myers, want to have a word with you...
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prbuckley 11y ago
The largest surprise to me here is that a small startup could get the judicial system to act in a matter of days to order the execution of a raid! That is impressive.
- webXL 11y ago
  Feds don't mind popping their heads on the evening news every once in a while. What better venue than CES?
vannevar 11y ago
I was hoping they were being raided for gross abuse of the term "hoverboard," but alas, that isn't the case.
- fratlas 11y ago
  In a perfect world.
lifeformed 11y ago
Why are these being called hoverboards?
- rdtsc 11y ago
  Because everyone wants to be like McFly from Back To The Future? Even though they all have wheels. I think there was one company that had a bigger board and had fans (or propellers) but it didn't look ready to sell yet.
deleted 11y ago
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philip1209 11y ago
> Lynzey Donahue, a U.S. Marshals official, said marshals served a court order at CES. If there's a court order, this seems to be a lot less sensational than the comment thread makes it appear to be.
- brazzledazzle 11y ago
  Why would US Marshals raid a booth at CES if they didn't have a court order? There might be some reason I'm not thinking of but I would have been surprised to hear that they didn't have one.
- yeukhon 11y ago
  The video stated they got a temp restraining order.
philip1209 11y ago
> Lynzey Donahue, a U.S. Marshals official, said marshals served a court order at CES. If there's a court order, this seems to be a lot less sensational than the comment thread makes it appear to be.
chromaton 11y ago
Here's a very similar design created by Jamison Go and his team at Georgia Tech back in 2011: http://thevariableconstant.blogspot.com/2011/02/survey-self-balancing-electric.html http://thevariableconstant.blogspot.com/2011/02/survey-self-...
- gruez 11y ago
  yeah but that has 2 wheels. ours only has one. definitely worthy of a new patent. /s
mullingitover 11y ago
IMHO everyone should be getting raided by the feds. Segway's patent from 2001 covers their 'inventions' handily. [1] http://www.google.com/patents/US6302230 http://www.google.com/patents/US6302230
- donatj 11y ago
  Came here to say basically this. It's not a new invention just because the number of wheels changed.
  - JoeAltmaier 11y ago
    Confused. The stability control system depends utterly on the number and arrangement of wheels. Such a change obviously constitutes a new invention.
    - donatj 11y ago
      Android and iOS are both smartphones, despite completely different software. The invention is the hardware.
      - oldmanjay 11y ago
        the implied analogy doesn't really seem applicable here. What are you trying to say?
    - dmicah 11y ago
      From the linked "Segway" Patent: FIG. 12 shows an alternate embodiment of a balancing vehicle with a single wheel central to the support platform of the vehicle and no handle in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention; Take a look at figure 12: http://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/US6302230B1/US06302230-20011016-D00012.png http://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/US6302230B1/US063...
    - mullingitover 11y ago
      The patent covers pretty much every conceivable self-balancing device you can think of. They covered their bases with the patent, and I was shocked that all the current 'hoverboard' designs didn't get immediately sued to oblivion.
duncan_bayne 11y ago
Right, now can we employ the same strategy to have GPL-violating products pulled from the shelves? Seriously. Perhaps this is an avenue to pursue in the case of unrepentant GPL violation by manufacturers - render their final products unsellable.
danschumann 11y ago
I'm glad Americans are standing up for their IP. #TRUMP!
- Wingman4l7 11y ago
  I was right with you until the hashtag.
sciguy77 11y ago
I used to work with the guy who made this hoverboard (the US company, not the Chinese one). He's an incredibly talented engineer, I'm glad he's able to fight crappy competitors that are hurting the hoverboard industry.
msie 11y ago
The design is so simple/obvious that I believe many people could have come up with it independently. It seems a bygone conclusion that the Chinese company was intentionally stealing from the US one but that might not be the case. Under patent law it doesn't matter if you invented something independently. I too would probably scoff at the correspondence from the US firm thinking it was some patent troll. I mean how do you patent a "board on a rolling pin"???
- analog31 11y ago
  I'm not a lawyer, but I have a handful of patents, and have been involved in the question of whether something is infringing on a patent or not. What I've heard from patent lawyers is that obviousness can be very difficult to argue. Taking two patented things and combining them is kind of the gold standard for obviousness. From there, it gets more difficult and murky.
- rhino369 11y ago
  Obviousness under patent law is judged at the time of the invention. Most (all?) inventions would have eventually being discovered by someone else. Patents are the reward for getting there first. Chinese companies ignore patent letters and suits because they are essentially immune from US courts as long as they stay under the radar and don't sell directly in the USA. > I mean how do you patent a "board on a rolling pin"??? You can reduce any invention to a couple word summary that seems absurd. The transistor is "just" an amplifier.
  - msie 11y ago
    There is prior art for the design so we cant tell if they ripped off the US guy. Also look at the history of patent trolls.
backtoyoujim 11y ago
I just saw that thing on A. Savage video. https://youtu.be/7Qi5snumoeY?t=3m34s https://youtu.be/7Qi5snumoeY?t=3m34s
supergirl 11y ago
"By 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Onewheel filed a request with a judge to stop the Trotters from being displayed on the show floor." So in a matter of a day the judge decided who is right and who is wrong? I thought these patent disputes usually take years.

118 points by ted0 11y ago

So a Chinese company knocks off an American company's patented product, ignores the patent holder's correspondence to cease production of the product, then gets their booth shut down forcibly by federal agents who were notified by the patent holder. The headline makes it seem like some grave injustice occurred (and the headline definitely made me open the link in my timeline) but it seems like the patent holder is simply exercising their legal rights here.

hellbanner 11y ago
Yes, but how interesting that these patents exist.. I want to hear from the Chinese company. Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on LinkedIn Share on Reddit Share on Google+ E-mail On Thursday afternoon, two U.S. federal marshals showed up at the Consumer Electronics Show to conduct a raid. As a crowd gathered, the marshals packed up a one-wheeled skateboard on display at a Chinese company's booth, as well as a sign and fliers promoting the product, and carried them away. It quickly became clear this wasn't the usual CES publicity stunt. Staffers for the company, Changzhou First International Trade Co., were stunned. Until that moment, Changzhou First International Trade was having a successful day. It wasn’t the only discount electronic skateboard dealer around, but passersby seemed taken by the design of its product, the Trotter. Instead of a board with a wheel on either end, like the popular hoverboards seen around the show, the Trotter looks like a seesaw with one big wheel in the middle. One man with a microphone and a camera stopped to take some footage; another quizzed employees about how fast the thing could go. The booth’s staff had trouble answering even basic questions in English, but they did their best. CES, the world's largest annual gadget conference taking place in Las Vegas this week, has always been full of small-bore dealers, many from China, selling products that look like something you might find in the discount bin at a Best Buy. The Consumer Technology Association, the trade group that puts on the show, welcomes them, as long as they pay the appropriate fees to rent a booth. Unoriginality is not against the rules. But there is a long-running strain of resentment among companies that feel their patents and trademarks are being violated by low-cost competitors. CES's legal department issues guidelines for those who feel wronged, and there’s even a list of rules for face-to-face disputes, including prohibitions on "loud, offensive or embarrassing confrontations" and a limit on the number of people who come along to accuse someone of ripping them off. The CTA asks companies not to bring more than two employees, one translator, and a lawyer. The raid on the show floor, which involved federal law enforcement, was the result of a weekslong effort by Future Motion, a Silicon Valley startup that said it invented and patented a self-balancing electric skateboard that looks strikingly similar to the ones the marshals confiscated. The company sent about a half-dozen people from its legal team to accompany the marshals in the raid. The CTA declined to comment, as did a woman present during the raid who appeared to be in charge of the booth, saying the company intended to consult a lawyer. Lynzey Donahue, a U.S. Marshals official, said marshals served a court order at CES. Future Motion's Onewheel skateboard is the brainchild of Kyle Doerksen, a designer who had previously worked on electric bicycles. Several years ago, Doerksen quit his job at the design company Ideo, made a prototype, and rented a booth at CES 2014. The idea was popular enough that a Kickstarter campaign, launched on the same day, eventually raised $630,000. The following year, Doerksen came back with a more finished model. His company, which decided against getting a booth this year, is in town to meet with potential business partners. Doerksen began the process of patenting aspects of the Onewheel several years ago. In August, Future Motion received a patent for the underlying technology. Earlier this week, it got a second one for the device's design. This patent prohibits competitors from making something that an ordinary observer might confuse with the Onewheel. “Would we have done this without the design patent being issued? The answer is we wouldn’t have bothered,” said Shawn Kolitch, a lawyer for the company. “If you can show the design patent drawing next to an accused product side by side, and they look identical, it helps your case.” Future Motion first found out about the Changzhou First International Trade product late last year, when a Onewheel user posted about it in an online forum. A listing by the Chinese company on Alibaba's online marketplace promised to provide some 2,000 boards per month for about $500 apiece to retailers. (Future Motion sells the Onewheel for $1,500 through its website.) “We said, ‘Wow, that’s clearly a knockoff,’” Doerksen said. According to Alibaba's website, retailers in Iceland, Germany, and the U.S. bought about $70,000 worth of products. In December, Kolitch sent a letter to Changzhou First International Trade demanding that it stop selling the products. He never heard back. Kolitch tried again the day before the show floor opened, by approaching the booth directly but got nowhere. By 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Onewheel filed a request with a judge to stop the Trotters from being displayed on the show floor. The newfangled electronic skateboards that have captured the imagination of geeks recently have been dominated by dozens of off-brand companies. A recent segment on NPR's Planet Money reported how the hoverboard trend has emerged almost spontaneously from dozens of Chinese factories at once. But Shane Chen, a Chinese-American inventor, disputed that idea. He said the so-called hoverboards were his idea. Like Doerksen, Chen is trying to get the government to crack down on his competitors. "After the raid at CES, all the merchandise and signs had been stripped off the booth. The Chinese company's staff sat around, unclear about what to do next. For Doerksen, getting the booth shut down serves not only to cut off what he saw as an illegitimate competitor but also to protect the reputation of the entire electric skateboard industry."
- wavefunction 11y ago
  So this all rests on a "design patent" rather than an utility patent. It's a disgusting concept in my opinion but I will note that members of the WIPO -- including China -- are obliged to respect them.
- mintplant 11y ago
  Did you mean to paste the entire text of the article here?
  - fastball 11y ago
    Well his username is "hellbanner". Seems somewhat self-aware.
    - geofft 11y ago
      "Vexilla regis proedunt inferni...."
  - hellbanner 11y ago
    No, I didn't. I meant topaste one specific paragraph.
duaneb 11y ago
Really? The headline (currently) reads U.S. Marshals (or Feds) Raid Hoverboard Booth at CES. I don't see any reference to injustice—I generally associate raids with positive busts, which is what makes stuff like raiding the Pirate Bay (albeit different feds) so shocking.
- wavefunction 11y ago
  I don't associate raids with anything positive necessarily. Sometimes, but not often.
  - duaneb 11y ago
    Not necessarily, no, but it's hardly a negative necessarily either. It's just an event.
    - dagw 11y ago
      Raids that make the news they tend to skew heavily negative. All the normal boring successful raids that happen never make the front page of national news sites.
- geofft 11y ago
  I associate raids with grenades in toddler's cribs, but I'm glad there are people less jaded than me. http://abcnews.go.com/US/family-toddler-injured-swat-grenade-faces-1m-medical/story?id=27671521 http://abcnews.go.com/US/family-toddler-injured-swat-grenade...
- davesque 11y ago
  Don't really agree. I feel pretty safe in saying there's a general negative connotation when the words "Feds" and "raid" are present in the same sentence. It may be true that the words themselves don't necessarily mean anything negative, but I bet most people would agree that the tone of the words is negative sounding.
  - derefr 11y ago
swehner 11y ago
Maybe you have become inured. But when you get officers removing stuff, you'd better have some solid case. According to the article "By 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Onewheel filed a request with a judge to stop the Trotters from being displayed on the show floor." So how much time was put into making sure there is a solid case? (Legal rights are always relative)
msie 11y ago
Saying that the Chinese company is producing a knockoff has yet to be proved. Given the hoverboard craze I am not surprised if the Chinese company has produced something by coincidence that the US company _happens_ to have a patent on.
- eps 11y ago
  Try and read the article before making abstract comments. It has names and links and it's bloody obvious Chinese is a blantant rip, not a "coincidence."
  - supergirl 11y ago
    How do you know who ripped of whom?
  - msie 11y ago
    The abstract comment is saying that the Chinese company ripped off this particular guy w/o better evidence because it's a Chinese company. When in fact this design has appeared before the US guy "invented" it. I read the article but nothing seemed bloody obvious in terms of a smoking gun.
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fab13n 11y ago
> The headline makes it seem like some grave injustice occurred Because you expect most news about US cops to report abusive behaviors. Whether the problem is with you, with US cops or with news can be debated, but that's clearly the sign of some problem(s). (Just to be clear, I personally don't think you're one of the problems)

11thEarlOfMar 11y ago

The OneWheel is manufactured in Silicon Valley.

staunch 11y ago

Startups that can't compete on product deserve to be beaten in the marketplace. If a Chinese factory can clone your device just by looking at it, you're definitely not doing anything worthy of a patent.

bigdubs 11y ago
Downvoted because that is not a reasonable crucible for if something is patentable ("can clone your device just by looking at it"). There is a vast swath of reasonable patents that are easily "copyable" after the fact. If something wasn't easily copyable then you wouldn't need a patent in the first place.
- Throwaway23412 11y ago
  Airplanes are easily "copyable". That didn't stop the Wright Brothers from patenting the first workable one. And they were engineers, not really entrepreneurs. It would be a shame for the brothers known for giving man the power of flight to never make any money from their achievement.
  - sciguy77 11y ago
    > Airplanes are easily "copyable". You're kidding, right?
    - Throwaway23412 11y ago
      *were easily "copyable". The Wright Brothers had hundreds of competitors at the time. They were also very private during their later attempts to get their flying machine to work, so that they could avoid competitors copying their design.
carlosdp 11y ago
That's absurd, it can look the same and still be a crappy product that has issues like the battery blowing up. The consumer might not know the difference between your board and the lower quality one that looks the same on the outside, and when news goes around with a picture of a board that looks exactly like yours, it hurts your product's sales.

soheil 11y ago

For those who wanna see the products side by side: Onewheel (American) [1] Totter (Chinese) [2] [1] http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/gadgetlab/2014/01/1W2_1021.jpg http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/gadgetlab/2014/01/1W2_1021... [2] http://g02.s.alicdn.com/kf/HTB1LWviKFXXXXc3XXXXq6xXFXXXU/Electric-Hoverboard-scooter-one-wheel-with-700W.jpg http://g02.s.alicdn.com/kf/HTB1LWviKFXXXXc3XXXXq6xXFXXXU/Ele...

morganvachon 11y ago
If anything, based on these photos the Chinese "knockoff" looks more refined. The Onewheel device pictured in your first link looks like a prototype or at best, a first revision. Then again, maybe they are going for that retro-custom-modded-skateboard look?
- chasing 11y ago
  The knock-off looks cheaper and more likely to be made of shitty plastic. To my eyes.
  - morganvachon 11y ago
    It probably is cheaper, being a knockoff. My point was more that the Onewheel device looks like something I'd slap together in my workshop out of spare metal brackets and plywood, not something I'd bring to mass market. All that said, I wouldn't ride either one. At my age bones don't heal as fast as they used to.
  - yeukhon 11y ago
    Also more dangerous because of the plastic where feet would be placed. That plastic should not be added for safety reason.
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droithomme 11y ago

Who is stealing from whom? Future Motion applied for their patent on July 21, 2015 and the application was published and publicly viewable on Nov. 12, 2015. http://www.freshpatents.com/-dt20151112ptan20150323935.php http://www.freshpatents.com/-dt20151112ptan20150323935.php Changzhou First International Trade Co was established in 2011. I wasn't able to tell when they first started selling these scooters. Were they really able to clone a product and get it in stores and demoed at CES between Nov. 12 2015 and today? Amazingly agile if so. And not even addressing the issue that all these products really seem to be violating Dean Kamen's patents.

koenigdavidmj 11y ago
NPR's Planet Money podcast released an episode a few weeks ago where they tried to find the original inventor: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/11/27/457404184/episode-666-the-hoverboard-life http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/11/27/457404184/episo...
- cloudwalking 11y ago
  This is a different kind of hoverboard. One single wheel in the middle, ridden sideways, not wheels on each end ridden forward.
mattthebaker 11y ago
It takes a long time to get a patent from application to publication. If you look closer at the patent, what will be considered the priority date for that patent is the date the provisional patent application was filed -- May 6, 2013.
- droithomme 11y ago
  I agree, however the first date Changzhou could have seen the patent application was its actual date of publication. I am skeptical Changzhou could have gone from reading this application, which is about ideas and not specific implementation and design, to engineering a manifestation of that patent, setting up a production line, testing, marketing, boxing, and selling these products between November and January. I would say that Changzhou has obviously been working on a similar design in parallel. When they started is not clear though. Both are also clearly derivative from, and in violation of, Kamen's patents. There's already several products from other companies that are one wheeled unicycle kamen devices. The hoverboards are mini Segways without the needed handle for stabilization. The more sensible front to back skateboard concept has been discussed in various places. It's not unreasonable to expect that many people were working on the design in parallel. The facts are though that the Chinese company failed to secure a US patent. That is their downfall in the US market. To say they stole the design is premature.

jMyles 11y ago

Whether you believe in the general utility of patents in the information age or not (and to be clear, I don't), this is a good reminder that patents are violence. You can't be truly non-violent and also believe in patents.

watty 11y ago
I'm not a fan of patents but I don't understand your comment. What exactly is violent about this?
- geomark 11y ago
  Patents themselves aren't violent. Patents allow one to invoke violence by the state by having armed men (US marshalls in this case) confiscate property and in some cases arrest people.
  - chasing 11y ago
    Yes. In many cases individuals are allowed to invoke the power of the state. By calling that power "violence" are you arguing that the state should not be able to take action to protect people?
    - geomark 11y ago
      Not arguing for or against anything. Armed men taking property and prisoners is violence regardless if it is sanctioned by the state or not. Civilized society wants that sort of violence if it is applied to violent crime. The same society might debate if that sort of violence is appropriate for other activities.
- geofft 11y ago
  The only way you can enforce a patent is by having armed law enforcement do so (as they did in this case), or relying on the perception that armed law enforcement could do so. That said, this argument would essentially hold that to live in civilized society (at least, as we understand civilization), to take advantage of tax-funded things like roads, to make use of government-enforced currencies, etc. is also violence. Which might be technically true, but is not useful, and certainly not useful for the goal of getting the rest of the world to be less violent; I know very few people whose brand of non-violence does not involve attempting to stop other people's violence. Indeed, a serious application of this argument would require one not to use the Internet, which was government-funded (i.e., funded by tax dollars, i.e., funded by money taken at implicit threat-of-gunpoint from citizens) out of military budgets (violence incarnate) and is still a bit government-run, and it would certainly require one not to use Hacker News, given how much Y Combinator firmly requires a strong conception of private property. So I think our pal Sonic the Hedgehog's famous quote applies, although the context is slightly different: http://i.imgur.com/wi1QIgG.jpg http://i.imgur.com/wi1QIgG.jpg

soheil 11y ago

Can't help but think part of this must have been a publicity stun, why couldn't they simply deny their application for a booth or discreetly show up in the morning and don't let them setup their booth to begin with?

mattthebaker 11y ago
OneWheel does not own or run CES, how would they have the power to deny an application? I agree it would have been a better move if they could have convinced CES to handle the matter quietly. Lots of reasons why that may not have been possible. Whether or not the publicity is even positive for one wheel -- they are seen calling in the feds, being generally litigious, and calling attention to the competitor -- is another question. He was definitely doing his best to spin it positive in the Bloomberg article saying this is good for the marketplace, etc.
- URSpider94 11y ago
  The CTA (organizers of CES) aren't going to do a thing unless they are served a court order. No way they want to get into the business of arbitrating IP disputes between their thousands of exhibitors!

sauronlord 11y ago

The "inventor" at Onewheel, Kyle Doerksen, quickly changed the conversation to about the 'safety' of 'knockoff' products. What does he know about that? Or is he full of it and just slandering another company with a product that looks like "his"? Disgusting attitude for an "inventor". Hello!!! McFly!! The inventor of the Segway, Kamen, and the inventor of the unicycle, Myers, want to have a word with you...

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prbuckley 11y ago

The largest surprise to me here is that a small startup could get the judicial system to act in a matter of days to order the execution of a raid! That is impressive.

webXL 11y ago
Feds don't mind popping their heads on the evening news every once in a while. What better venue than CES?

vannevar 11y ago

I was hoping they were being raided for gross abuse of the term "hoverboard," but alas, that isn't the case.

fratlas 11y ago
In a perfect world.

lifeformed 11y ago

Why are these being called hoverboards?

rdtsc 11y ago
Because everyone wants to be like McFly from Back To The Future? Even though they all have wheels. I think there was one company that had a bigger board and had fans (or propellers) but it didn't look ready to sell yet.

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philip1209 11y ago

> Lynzey Donahue, a U.S. Marshals official, said marshals served a court order at CES. If there's a court order, this seems to be a lot less sensational than the comment thread makes it appear to be.

brazzledazzle 11y ago
Why would US Marshals raid a booth at CES if they didn't have a court order? There might be some reason I'm not thinking of but I would have been surprised to hear that they didn't have one.
yeukhon 11y ago
The video stated they got a temp restraining order.

philip1209 11y ago

> Lynzey Donahue, a U.S. Marshals official, said marshals served a court order at CES. If there's a court order, this seems to be a lot less sensational than the comment thread makes it appear to be.

chromaton 11y ago

Here's a very similar design created by Jamison Go and his team at Georgia Tech back in 2011: http://thevariableconstant.blogspot.com/2011/02/survey-self-balancing-electric.html http://thevariableconstant.blogspot.com/2011/02/survey-self-...

gruez 11y ago
yeah but that has 2 wheels. ours only has one. definitely worthy of a new patent. /s

mullingitover 11y ago

IMHO everyone should be getting raided by the feds. Segway's patent from 2001 covers their 'inventions' handily. [1] http://www.google.com/patents/US6302230 http://www.google.com/patents/US6302230

donatj 11y ago
Came here to say basically this. It's not a new invention just because the number of wheels changed.
- JoeAltmaier 11y ago
  Confused. The stability control system depends utterly on the number and arrangement of wheels. Such a change obviously constitutes a new invention.
  - donatj 11y ago
    Android and iOS are both smartphones, despite completely different software. The invention is the hardware.
    - oldmanjay 11y ago
      the implied analogy doesn't really seem applicable here. What are you trying to say?
  - dmicah 11y ago
    From the linked "Segway" Patent: FIG. 12 shows an alternate embodiment of a balancing vehicle with a single wheel central to the support platform of the vehicle and no handle in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention; Take a look at figure 12: http://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/US6302230B1/US06302230-20011016-D00012.png http://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/US6302230B1/US063...
  - mullingitover 11y ago
    The patent covers pretty much every conceivable self-balancing device you can think of. They covered their bases with the patent, and I was shocked that all the current 'hoverboard' designs didn't get immediately sued to oblivion.

duncan_bayne 11y ago

Right, now can we employ the same strategy to have GPL-violating products pulled from the shelves? Seriously. Perhaps this is an avenue to pursue in the case of unrepentant GPL violation by manufacturers - render their final products unsellable.

danschumann 11y ago

I'm glad Americans are standing up for their IP. #TRUMP!

Wingman4l7 11y ago
I was right with you until the hashtag.

sciguy77 11y ago

I used to work with the guy who made this hoverboard (the US company, not the Chinese one). He's an incredibly talented engineer, I'm glad he's able to fight crappy competitors that are hurting the hoverboard industry.

msie 11y ago

The design is so simple/obvious that I believe many people could have come up with it independently. It seems a bygone conclusion that the Chinese company was intentionally stealing from the US one but that might not be the case. Under patent law it doesn't matter if you invented something independently. I too would probably scoff at the correspondence from the US firm thinking it was some patent troll. I mean how do you patent a "board on a rolling pin"???

analog31 11y ago
I'm not a lawyer, but I have a handful of patents, and have been involved in the question of whether something is infringing on a patent or not. What I've heard from patent lawyers is that obviousness can be very difficult to argue. Taking two patented things and combining them is kind of the gold standard for obviousness. From there, it gets more difficult and murky.
rhino369 11y ago
Obviousness under patent law is judged at the time of the invention. Most (all?) inventions would have eventually being discovered by someone else. Patents are the reward for getting there first. Chinese companies ignore patent letters and suits because they are essentially immune from US courts as long as they stay under the radar and don't sell directly in the USA. > I mean how do you patent a "board on a rolling pin"??? You can reduce any invention to a couple word summary that seems absurd. The transistor is "just" an amplifier.
- msie 11y ago
  There is prior art for the design so we cant tell if they ripped off the US guy. Also look at the history of patent trolls.

backtoyoujim 11y ago

I just saw that thing on A. Savage video. https://youtu.be/7Qi5snumoeY?t=3m34s https://youtu.be/7Qi5snumoeY?t=3m34s

supergirl 11y ago

"By 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Onewheel filed a request with a judge to stop the Trotters from being displayed on the show floor." So in a matter of a day the judge decided who is right and who is wrong? I thought these patent disputes usually take years.