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Homebrew Equipment A place to show, design and discuss the weird and wonderful electronic creations from the hands of individual members. |
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10th May 2018, 2:11 pm | #21 |
Dekatron
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Oxford, UK.
Posts: 4,991
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Re: Polystyrene speakers?
Good grief - 500 patents! The first task would be to go through every one and work out whether it was essential to the business. I've done exactly that exercise several times as a consultant. Typically you can reduce the number of patents by a factor of 10 without compromising the business.
The kind of companies that can fund a patent portfolio of that size are typically pharaceuticals, consumer electronics giants (Apple for example), and aerospace (Rolls Royce etc). But niche audio? No chance - it is little wonder they went belly up. |
11th May 2018, 12:37 pm | #22 |
Octode
Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: Manchester, UK.
Posts: 1,875
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Re: Polystyrene speakers?
I was down at nxt a couple of times, but, thinking back, it must be 20 years ago now. From what I remember the work originated at Mission, and they spun them out as a separate company. I'm not surprised they ended up with a lot of patents. The business model seemed to be to patent things which in some peoples' minds might seem obvious - vibrating things stuck on panels free to vibrate, will radiate sound - and to license this knowledge to other people who would manufacture. I wondered if they would be able to protect the 'IP'...it seems not. I still think the singing ceiling tile has a market in shopping centres and department stores - or, given the death of retail, perhaps airports!
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