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I am not sure that is how patents are supposed to work. Few people would object to eInk getting profits from their inventions. But the problem seems to be the s

by _ph_ 6y ago

I am not sure that is how patents are supposed to work. Few people would object to eInk getting profits from their inventions. But the problem seems to be the strange ways eInk markets their products. It seems to be that they are not encouraging more companies to use their products an rather hold back their technology. Patents were created as an incentive not only to do research but to publish the results of the research. So that many companies would have access to the technology and can license the patents when producing products based on that technology. That is not quite aligned with a company reluctantly marketing their technology.

mortenjorck 6y ago
Indeed, I don't think it's hard to imagine an alternate timeline where E Ink simply negotiated royalties with a handful of manufacturers over the past 10-15 years and we saw an explosion of e-paper displays as OEMs iterated on E Ink's processes and experimented with more scalable, cost-effective variants. E Ink could have been the ARM of low-power display technology, raking in a billion dollars a year in royalties while the ecosystem flourished, but they couldn't let go of being the monopoly provider for their technology. What a waste.
- ahepp 6y ago
  I wonder why say, SoftBank, doesn't buy them and do what you're describing? Is there something commercial players realize about e-ink that the rest of us don't? Or do they lack vision (seems unlikely under current market conditions)?
  - robinsoh 6y ago
    I wouldn't have high expectations of SoftBank but it does illustrate one key point. Everyone noticed that SoftBank was willing to burn a couple of billion on stuff like WeWork. It is considered reasonable in the VC/private venture industry to take bets on AI/ML, internet services. If those companies fail, nobody is going to fire you even if you vouched for obvious disasters like WeWork. The same VCs would never even consider taking a stake in startups that do the incremental improvements in pieces of display technology like TFT or material science improvements. I work in the display industry and I can only smile when people say it is being held back by patents and stuff like that because the real reason is really about investment. > Is there something commercial players realize about e-ink that the rest of us don't? Or do they lack vision (seems unlikely under current market conditions)? What I know is that their technology is limited by the physics of moving large particles. Their volumes are not high enough to achieve high scale. There was another post that explained this very well by showing the multi-billion cost of a typical LCD factory. I think E-ink can only re-purpose existing LCD factory lines and they can't get good yields on their products doing that.
    - refulgentis 6y ago
      I gotta be honest I'm on a completely different track than this thread: these displays are pretty bad! No one is choosing a 4096 color 2560x1400p 30" with a refresh rate thats so poor they won't share it - its surely measured in seconds.
      - brmgb 6y ago
        It's a large color screen with a good resolution, visible from any direction and under any light condition, and which can keep showing an image for an unlimited amount of times. With a battery and a gsm modem it could probably stay unattended for years as a billboard.
      - mstipetic 6y ago
        If the refresh rate was improved I would buy it in an instant. I would probably buy a monochrome one. Maybe the refresh rate would have been improved by now had they allowed more innovation in the space.
        robinsoh 6y ago
        > had they allowed more innovation in the space. This has already been covered repeatedly. There's no "had they allowed". The problem is physics! Please read about electrophoresis. It is pigment particles moving physically in a fluid! If you make them move fast then they're not going to be stable. You can look at the past 20 years of electrophoretic products and you'll see that there's been pretty much 0 improvement in speed. Startups like Clearink even gave up on bistability meaning they decided we don't need the pigment to stick, we'll just continuously refresh it like LCD and look how the investor and consumer market treated them. Again, this "had they allowed more innovation" seems to be coming from people who have little to no knowledge of the industry.
      - legacynl 6y ago
        That wouldn't matter for passive information displays. The fact that it only needs power to change what is displayed makes them very useful in any system that displays something (semi)long-term. Think of roadmarkings, parking-space indicators, shop-signs, billboards, carbonmonoxide detectors, road-signals. I can figuratively come up with infinite amount of applications like this. Basically the only bad application is monitors/tvscreens/smartphone screens.
hammock 6y ago
>I am not sure that is how patents are supposed to work. Few people would object to eInk getting profits from their inventions. But the problem seems to be the strange ways eInk markets their products. It seems to be that they are not encouraging more companies to use their products an rather hold back their technology. If eInk is really missing out on so much profit from the activities you describe, then a buyer might swoop in and put the company under new management. It's not the patent's fault.
- _ph_ 6y ago
  It is the patents fault that the current situation exists. Whether a potential buyer might be able to change the situation is something independent. And of course, after not making a huge business out of eInk in 20 years, it is understandable that the buyers don't exactly line up to buy eInk - if they can be bought at all without the owners consent. The market for eInk devices could be much larger if it hadn't been so much restricted in the last 20 years.

by _ph_ 6y ago

mortenjorck 6y ago

Indeed, I don't think it's hard to imagine an alternate timeline where E Ink simply negotiated royalties with a handful of manufacturers over the past 10-15 years and we saw an explosion of e-paper displays as OEMs iterated on E Ink's processes and experimented with more scalable, cost-effective variants. E Ink could have been the ARM of low-power display technology, raking in a billion dollars a year in royalties while the ecosystem flourished, but they couldn't let go of being the monopoly provider for their technology. What a waste.

ahepp 6y ago
I wonder why say, SoftBank, doesn't buy them and do what you're describing? Is there something commercial players realize about e-ink that the rest of us don't? Or do they lack vision (seems unlikely under current market conditions)?
- robinsoh 6y ago
  I wouldn't have high expectations of SoftBank but it does illustrate one key point. Everyone noticed that SoftBank was willing to burn a couple of billion on stuff like WeWork. It is considered reasonable in the VC/private venture industry to take bets on AI/ML, internet services. If those companies fail, nobody is going to fire you even if you vouched for obvious disasters like WeWork. The same VCs would never even consider taking a stake in startups that do the incremental improvements in pieces of display technology like TFT or material science improvements. I work in the display industry and I can only smile when people say it is being held back by patents and stuff like that because the real reason is really about investment. > Is there something commercial players realize about e-ink that the rest of us don't? Or do they lack vision (seems unlikely under current market conditions)? What I know is that their technology is limited by the physics of moving large particles. Their volumes are not high enough to achieve high scale. There was another post that explained this very well by showing the multi-billion cost of a typical LCD factory. I think E-ink can only re-purpose existing LCD factory lines and they can't get good yields on their products doing that.
  - refulgentis 6y ago
    I gotta be honest I'm on a completely different track than this thread: these displays are pretty bad! No one is choosing a 4096 color 2560x1400p 30" with a refresh rate thats so poor they won't share it - its surely measured in seconds.
    - brmgb 6y ago
      It's a large color screen with a good resolution, visible from any direction and under any light condition, and which can keep showing an image for an unlimited amount of times. With a battery and a gsm modem it could probably stay unattended for years as a billboard.
    - mstipetic 6y ago
      If the refresh rate was improved I would buy it in an instant. I would probably buy a monochrome one. Maybe the refresh rate would have been improved by now had they allowed more innovation in the space.
      - robinsoh 6y ago
        > had they allowed more innovation in the space. This has already been covered repeatedly. There's no "had they allowed". The problem is physics! Please read about electrophoresis. It is pigment particles moving physically in a fluid! If you make them move fast then they're not going to be stable. You can look at the past 20 years of electrophoretic products and you'll see that there's been pretty much 0 improvement in speed. Startups like Clearink even gave up on bistability meaning they decided we don't need the pigment to stick, we'll just continuously refresh it like LCD and look how the investor and consumer market treated them. Again, this "had they allowed more innovation" seems to be coming from people who have little to no knowledge of the industry.
    - legacynl 6y ago
      That wouldn't matter for passive information displays. The fact that it only needs power to change what is displayed makes them very useful in any system that displays something (semi)long-term. Think of roadmarkings, parking-space indicators, shop-signs, billboards, carbonmonoxide detectors, road-signals. I can figuratively come up with infinite amount of applications like this. Basically the only bad application is monitors/tvscreens/smartphone screens.

hammock 6y ago

>I am not sure that is how patents are supposed to work. Few people would object to eInk getting profits from their inventions. But the problem seems to be the strange ways eInk markets their products. It seems to be that they are not encouraging more companies to use their products an rather hold back their technology. If eInk is really missing out on so much profit from the activities you describe, then a buyer might swoop in and put the company under new management. It's not the patent's fault.

_ph_ 6y ago
It is the patents fault that the current situation exists. Whether a potential buyer might be able to change the situation is something independent. And of course, after not making a huge business out of eInk in 20 years, it is understandable that the buyers don't exactly line up to buy eInk - if they can be bought at all without the owners consent. The market for eInk devices could be much larger if it hadn't been so much restricted in the last 20 years.