All table saws to be SawStops?

[Ray Newman]

SawStop news release, dated 2/28/2024:

"SawStop To Dedicate Key U.S. Patent To The Public Upon The Effective Date Of A Rule Requiring Safety Technology On All Table Saws


"TUALATIN, OREGON, Feb. 28, 2024 — Today, in response to proposed rulemaking regarding table saw
safety by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), SawStop committed to dedicate U.S.
Patent 9,724,840 to the public upon the rule’s effective date.

"The intent of the proposed rule is to prevent the thousands of amputations and hospitalizations that will
continue to occur without industry-wide action.

“ 'We work to protect and inspire all woodworkers, from novice hobbyists to professional craftspeople.
Opponents of the proposed rulemaking have identified this patent as their key obstacle to offering safer
saws,' said Matt Howard, CEO, SawStop. 'We invest heavily in safety innovation, and our patents have
real value. Even so, we will not allow this patent to be an obstacle to a safer future. To that end, SawStop is prepared to dedicate this ‘840 patent to the public upon the effective date of a rule requiring active injury mitigation technology on all table saws. Although such a rule is likely many years away from an effective date, we at SawStop are determined to seek a win-win balance between our mission and our business responsibilities.'

"Safety Standards for Addressing Table Saw Blade-Contact Injuries
On November 1, 2023, the CPSC published a supplemental notice of proposed rulemaking under the
Consumer Product Safety Act proposing to issue a safety standard addressing blade-contact injuries on
table saws. The proposed rule would require all table saws to 'limit the depth of cut to no more than 3.5 mm' when a test probe, acting as a surrogate for a human finger or other body part, contacts the
spinning blade at a rate of 1 meter per second (m/s).

"As the pioneer in safety technology for table saws, SawStop believes such a standard will radically
improve the overall safety of all table saws sold in the United States. It will help prevent the tens of
thousands of severe injuries annually that result in billions of dollars in corresponding healthcare, pain,
and suffering costs for victims and society.

"For more information about the CPCS hearing from February 28, visit: https://www.cpsc.gov

Read all 'bout it: https://www.sawstop.com/news/sawstop...ll-table-saws/

[Darrell Bade]

Interesting to see if there are another 240 posts now without a villain................

[John Lanciani]

Looks to me that the patent in question has already expired?

https://patents.google.com/patent/US9724840B2/en

[Steve Demuth]

Looks to me that the patent in question has already expired?

https://patents.google.com/patent/US9724840B2/en

Google patents has this wrong. The 9724840 patent was issued with a one year extension, but after Sawstop took the patent office to task, the patent office extended that to roughly 11 years. The note correcting the date is appended to the patent in the patent database, but Google's patent processing robot didn't see that one page note, or didn't properly account for it. 9724840 at present looks good through 2033.

(Which, BTW, is outrageous, and a complete fail of the patent system, IMO. The patent coverage was extended under rules that say you can get one day of additional coverage for each day patent issuance is delayed for certain reasons. But Sawstop had effective coverage of the patent for the entire time issuance was delayed in this case. So Sawstop managed to game the system to get 30 years of patent protection after the invention was actually in the market place. It's crap like that that makes me dislike the whole profession of lawyering)

[Edward Weber]

Interesting to see if there are another 240 posts now without a villain................

Mr. Gass will always be the villain in my book.

For the last 20 years he has done everything possible to try and manipulate the marketplace, the courts, trade groups and government agency's to make his creation the law of the land, so to speak.
Whatever the result of the hearing, I'm sure we've not heard the last from him.

JMHO

[Lloyd McKinlay]

Mr. Gass will always be the villain in my book.

For the last 20 years he has done everything possible to try and manipulate the marketplace, the courts, trade groups and government agency's to make his creation the law of the land, so to speak.

JMHO

Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and many, many more have attempted most if not all of the above. It has been that way throughout our history.

[mike stenson]

Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and many, many more have attempted most if not all of the above. It has been that way throughout our history.

If you're upset about tech companies, you haven't looked at drug companies. They have patent extension privileges that the rest of us.. don't.

[Michael Burnside]

If you're upset about tech companies, you haven't looked at drug companies. They have patent extension privileges that the rest of us.. don't.

Amen to that Mike. Tech companies or SawStop don't even register on my radar in comparison.

[Steve Demuth]

Indeed. Big information technology companies, with a few exceptions (Qualcomm comes to mind, with respect to cellular tech) do not control markets primarily through patents. That's in no small part due to the fact that you can't generally patent most software-based innovation, and because technology debt and other forms of customer lock in create big barriers to entry, and the built-to-sell corporate structures funded by venture capital provide a roadmap for established giants to stifle platform change by acquiring innovations before they reach threatening mass, limits what can be done with a few good ideas.

Drug manufacturing is, as you say, a whole different ball game. Patents are the defense mechanism of choice for market control in the drug industry, and the drug companies are masters at manipulating the system in order to create huge rent-based cash flows. There are drugs with 95% margins with years of patent protection still in the pipeline, funding a little little bit of new drug development, and a lot of shareholder return, in every successful big drug company.

[Edward Weber]

“We invest heavily in safety innovation, and our patents have
real value. Even so, we will not allow this patent to be an obstacle to a safer future. To that end, SawStop is prepared to dedicate this ‘840 patent to the public upon the effective date of a rule requiring active injury mitigation technology on all table saws. Although such a rule is likely many years away from an effective date, we at SawStop are determined to seek a win-win balance between our mission and our business responsibilities.”

What a load of horse manure.

So, many years from now upon a regulatory mandate, they'll release one of the over 100 patents, so that they can claim they're all in for safety.
This is nothing more than the appearance of doing something good, without actually doing anything of substance at all.

I didn't think I could dislike them more but they just keep giving.

[Ronald Blue]

“We invest heavily in safety innovation, and our patents have
real value. Even so, we will not allow this patent to be an obstacle to a safer future. To that end, SawStop is prepared to dedicate this ‘840 patent to the public upon the effective date of a rule requiring active injury mitigation technology on all table saws. Although such a rule is likely many years away from an effective date, we at SawStop are determined to seek a win-win balance between our mission and our business responsibilities.”

What a load of horse manure.

So, many years from now upon a regulatory mandate, they'll release one of the over 100 patents, so that they can claim they're all in for safety.
This is nothing more than the appearance of doing something good, without actually doing anything of substance at all.

I didn't think I could dislike them more but they just keep giving.

If there is even an ounce of sincerity in these used oats they will allow the Bosch system to be in play as well if this gets forced upon the consumer.

[Steve Demuth]

If there is even an ounce of sincerity in these used oats they will allow the Bosch system to be in play as well if this gets forced upon the consumer.

Bosch already has a license that allows them to sell the REAXX in North America. They have chosen not to do so.

[Ronald Blue]

Bosch already has a license that allows them to sell the REAXX in North America. They have chosen not to do so.

If you can steer me to that information I would appreciate it. My searches have came up empty. In fact everything I have found indicates there is no longer a Bosch Reaxx table saw.

[Steve Demuth]

This letter to the CPSC from Sawstop Holdings LLC refers to a license, which I interpreted as above: https://downloads.regulations.gov/CP...59/content.pdf

I believed when I wrote my response that I had a better reference, but I can't find it either. The above doesn't clarify the terms of the license, so I may have it wrong. My apologies.

I think you're correct that Bosch no longer manufacturers or markets REAXX. In their CPSC filings the refer to a 6 year time to "redevelop" REAXX.

[Kent Cartwright]

https://www.powertoolinstitute.com/pti-pages/it-table-saw-facts.asp

Unintended Consequences Of The SawStop Technology

• Data supplied by SawStop concerning the number of table saw units sold and the number of reported blade contact incidences, demonstrates that operators are nearly five times more likely to contact the saw blade of a SawStop saw as opposed to the operator of a conventional table saw.
• Logic dictates that this increase in accident rate on SawStop saws is due primarily to a user’s decision to use the blade guard less frequently or not at all due to a “sense of security” in having the SawStop flesh-sensing technology on the saw.
• The reduced rate of using the blade guarding system will result in increased rate of facial or eye injuries caused by high velocity particles ejected by the saw blade or injuries caused by workpiece kickback.
• The increased cost of even the least expensive table saws, as discussed in this document, may result in power tool users resorting to unsafe methods (for example: using portable hand held circular saw in inverted position) to accomplish cuts normally performed on a table saw.
• The rising population in the 1980's of the affordable and safe benchtop saw resulted in a decrease in accidents from circular saws being used improperly. If benchtop saws become drastically more expensive or manufacturers withdraw from the market, there is likely to be a return to improper use of circular saws and unintended declines in safety.

I'm sorry, but this is not a peer-reviewed article about table saw injuries using data and a valid research method, which one normally needs to reach a defensible conclusion. After reading it completely, it appears to be conjecture, using cherry-picked information from another source, with no effort to test or vet the data, done by SawStop's competitors in their filing to the CPSC. Were it submitted for peer review, they would tear this thing apart not only for the lack of research methods but also for the lack of exploring another rationale for many of the "Conclusions". For instance, concluding that SawStop tech makes using their saw 5 times more dangerous completely ignores the fact that no other manufacturer tracks the injury rates and causes of their own saws. So this article is comparing SawStop's self-reported injury rates to ....what? Certainly not to comparable data.

I think one needs to accept this report for what it is, which is a well-written argument by competitors trying to sway the opinions of the decision-makers at the CPSC. They very well may have valid points, but they have not established them as "facts".