My next project... Tiger's chairs.

John Pollman

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Rochester Hills, MI
One of my FB friends just shared a link with me and it's awesome! It included a picture of a couple adirondack style chairs that someone made, but they're in the shape of a Detroit Tiger's Olde English D.

I'm going to start working on some plans and I will be making some of these! How cool are these?

Tigers chairs.jpg
 
Not at all Bill, do some more homework you would be surprised!

The Old English "D" is not copyrighted, but the Tigers logo (which is comprised of that "D") is indeed trademarked. With the amount of prior art the Tigers (and MLB) can prove, your design patent will be a challenge, to say the least.

And patented or not, if a hobbyist wants to make an Adirondack chair with an Old English "D" as the back, there's not a lot stopping them. ;) And quite frankly if one of our members wants to make one, I'll be cheering him on. :thumb:
 
Take a look at the Detroit Tigers website. Their Old English D is a little different from the one Gerald is using. He's using the Tigers' colors as best I can tell. Wonder if the Tigers' organization is aware of his work?
 
Interesting. Filed in June of 13 and granted? in Dec of 14. Gerald, is it safe to assume you went to what I always heard was a lot of trouble because you intend to manufacture or license this design?
 
Very interesting subject this, as a person who has had to try defend two different patents involving product that was already being sold globally and with history I am intrigued as to why anyone would patent the design of something like this.

I doubt any lawyer would take a case like this on the basis of contingency as their financial gain would be entirely questionable given the value of the loss incurred to date.

Its one thing when the mighty Samsung or Apple infringe each others patents given the potential loss in terms of being able to demonstrate market share and subsequent loss or impact. But i would be curious to know the true size of the market for something like this.

You may have been granted a patent Gerald but in my opinion based on my experience with this subject, until such time as the patent has stood up in court and been tested as opposed to merely pass the patent offices test of either originality or novelty then what one finds out is that the patent is pretty much worthless.

i was in for a 60 000 Pounds Sterling upfront retainer to even begin to defend my companies patent a patent that the majority of the industry that was relevant to the product, had already accepted, and it had been in good standing for many years at the time of infringement. The infringement was not in question. My patent attorney that lost a client after advised that we would not get much damages if we pursued as the loss we had incurred was minimal due to the sales that had occurred of the infringes product. When we weighed the costs to the gains IF we one well lets say we stopped right there settled up our patent attorney and woke up about patenting.

Securing intellectual property rights to something is only worthwhile in my opinion ( formulated as a result of many of these exercises and discussions with other CEO's of even larger global equipment manufacturers) if one can reasonably see a likelihood of mass adoption. And Bill is correct in as far as royalty's are concerned, because having a patent does not mean you can prevent others from using the "intellectual property" a court would require that you settle on a reasonable royalty. Of course reasonable royalty could mean there goes the profits.

In my view there is a misconception about patenting and protection of intellectual property and the true value that exists in it.

The time to hit the infringing party with the patent issue is when they have sold 100 000 of the item that the patent pertains to and one can claim damages. Of course a lot of this depends on how deep ones pockets are both in terms of money but more importantly time in comparison to the likely outcome of a court case.

One CEO i spoke to on the matter where the company was a highly innovative entity using innovation and customer service as their key differentiation in the marketplace, said they had patented all sorts in their equipment. And as a growing company, came to the conclusion the only beneficiary from their patents were the lawyer that did all the work and the renewals along with the trail of information that they were providing their competition through the disclosure in the patent documents. They did not have the executive staff sitting around to be able to attend the court cases and deal with the lawyers needs to defend the cases. On top of that they were moving at such pace they were super-ceding their own patents and merely blazing a trail of direction of innovation for competitors to follow and try leapfrog. Instead they adopted a policy of keeping things as secret as they could and making it as difficult as possible for competitor to find out. In their case it had to do with the value of the equipment and the fact that the volume being sold and hence benefits or income from royalties was going to be questionable as to the value of what was being given away for the gains.

I subsequently adopted a very similar policy given product life cycles today and the speed of innovation that comes with our rapidly changing times. Of course the patent attorneys think differently but have a discussion with one , its all encouragement until you end up at the day like i did and then try turn the tables on them and say OK now you eat the cost of the case and i will share the spoils with you then you see them back track and find all the reasons why you unlikely to win your case.

This is very different when one considers something that could be sold to the mass market and a dollar or two skimmed off for royalties or where say the likes of a Samsung or Apple licence each other and as a consequence end up with both having the same basic feature but one has a few dollars per unit greater base cost.

Now you are referring not to the issue of novelty or originality but to design and for a body to infringe your design patent they would be needing to copy the exact manner in which you have designed your method of attaching the D. That says were they to attach the D differently you have no design infringement. Very thin benefit in my view to warrant the cost of protection for what i as a non aware of tiger brand person chair pertaining to the mounting of a single character.

Its all a moot point in my view the guys that would have the most to say about what John would like to do or has done would be in my view the Tigers franchise holders. They the ones that have made the colors and the D have a specific meaning and brand intellectual property value and i would say color plays a role in this too.

I am no lawyer so this is just my own opinion based on my prior experiences.

So how are chair sales going?
 
Need to chime in here, you just said to Rob, "color is the only play here" I thought I read it was it is how the "D" is attached is what the patent is, not color??? And telling someone to Grow something??? REALLY DUDE??? You have been here for nothing but trying to protect a patent of how a letter is connected to a chair, REALLY? Changing a screw angle drops your patent flat out Per your description. Myself I would be flattered if one was to create a version of my work! Picking on ones business sence, not knowing him? He has more business sence that most, ANYWHERE! listen to him, you may learn something, he KNOWS what he speaks! My remarks are not "snide" just as I say "real". These are my feelings to this 1 1/2 year old response on you behalf. Sorry if this is not what you would like to hear, but it is MY and only MY thoughts on this subject, not a forum answer, MINE!
 
WOW!

This thread has gotten out of control. I had completely forgotten about it until it resurfaced the other day.

Gary, nice design and I really like it. I can assure you that you don't have to worry about me making and selling a bunch of these. I originally saw just a photo of the chair on Facebook. No info on who made it or where it came from. If I see a project that I like, one of the things I like to do is "reverse engineer" it and see if I can come up with a similar version. I've loved woodworking my entire life. (I'm soon to be 51) I haven't done much of it for a while. Three years ago I was diagnosed with an extremely rare disease that has no treatment and no cure. It is a genetic neurological condition that is slowly robbing me of the ability to do a lot of the things I love. I am more than likely headed for a wheelchair at some point in the future.

When I made this original post, I was in a very bad place. I was severely depressed and trying to find something to take my mind off of my condition. I started working on projects and it helped get my mind of off my troubles and it really helped. When I saw this design, I really wanted to make a set for myself. If they came out well, I might have made a set or two for friends or family that are big Tiger fans. But you don't have to worry. In the year and a half since I started this post, the disease has progressed faster than I thought it would. Even simple woodworking is becoming a challenge.

You won't be getting any patent infringement from me.
 
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