Dave, Tim... others. I'm not sure I agree with the statement that there hasnt been any posts that could not very understandably be seen as belligerent in tone, or borderline. Given the history of some of the exchanges on this subject I'd think everyone should go out of their way to stay on very safe and very polite ground. It is far to easy as it is to read between the lines. Especially when one has been stung outright in the past. That said... I'd agree with David in that whatever testing has been done should be made public and available to anyone that wants to check it out. One of Stuarts & Sons problems is that they leave themselves open to this kind of questioning.. which indeed crosses the border into attack on occasion. One other point I'd like to make. True enough... a patent holder must defend the claims made. But not beyond what is reasonable. Any counter-claim about the claims made must be just as credible in basis. But that is the extent of a patent holders responsiblities in this regard. Strictly speaking... questions in themselves dont qualify as demanding an answer... tho perhaps it is wiser to meet the questioning community then ignore it. Cheers RicB Tim: I know posts from me have irritated you in the past so I'll try my bestnot to do that with this one. When someone invents something that they deem to be significant, application is made for a patent. In the patent process "claims" are made. If the patent office decides that these claims are novel, not obvious, and not "prior art" a patent is awarded. At that time the claims are made public and the intellectual property is protected for a length of time. At this point outsiders can evaluate the claims in the patent and question them. The inventor/patent-holder must then defend their claims. Once a patent has been made public the inventor can expect questions from the relevant community about his/her work. The old playground "because I said so" doesn't suffice. Questions, requests for scientific (repeatable) test results can certainly be expected. Even the testing process is open to discussion as to its validity. This back-and-forth between knowledgeable people is what keeps innovation moving. That's all I've seen here in this discussion. I haven't seen any "belligerent" prose (well, maybe the 'pigeon poo' was a little testy)! As you know I spent two days with you learning the process and paid my $100 to become a licensed Wapin installer. I'm interested in _anything_ that can improve our chosen instrument. That doesn't mean that I don't still have questions. Like most in our line of work I always want to know how and why something works. These are questions, not attacks! dave David M. Porritt dporritt at smu.edu
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