Propiatory Innovations

[Mark Story]

I have recently noted that a number of innovations in piano technology that
could be implemented by individual technician/rebuilders are being clamped
down with propietary claims by individual technicians and their
institutions. I feel that this is unnecisary and runs contrary to an
unspoken tradition of PTG members of freely sharing new ideas and approaches
on our end of the piano business. I'm not speaking of production line use of
propiatory technologies by large-scale builders. These would be in a
position of employing such innovations in their products and, in turn
patenting the process themselves. For this reason, I'm not opposed to
individual technicians seeking protection for their ideas, if in fact they
are patentable and they can afford it, but still granting individual
technicians and rebuilders license to employ the process in their own work.
Who knows, maybe someone else can contribute an idea that tweaks the process
a little bit better, and on and on. As I understand it, this is the idea
behind the GNU and LINEX movement in the computer world of reqiring free
distribution of the source code of changes to the core applications.

The reason that this has come to my attention of late is that in discussion
forums, either here or in the Journal, the public discussion of these ideas
are mostly limited to coy teasers of information apparantly designed to
advertise the process but not providing any useful information. Through the
years I can think of several processes that fit into this catagory that have
been released for at least limited use and at the same time freely
discussing details of the process and materials invloved. One that comes to
mind immediately is the Baldwin plate suspencion system.  This was freely
discussed by Baldwin techs and engineers and a limited license was
specificly granted to individual PTG members to employ this process in their
work, though the process was thoroughly patented by Baldwin. The important
thing is that in this case, as well as many others, the technical
information surrounding the process was thoroughly discussed so that the
technical community at large could freely discuss the technology behind the
process, experiment with it and possibly offer suggestions of improvements
whether individuals personally employ the process in their work or not.

This discussion of ideas and processes has had the effect of raising the
overall level of technical knowlege of the profession. Where would we be,
for example, if our factory technical reps. had not freely discussed in all
forums the techniques of installing pinblocks that they employ, or discuss
the details of action geometry and why they chose their application. I am
greatful for the contributions of various technicians and engineers who at
some time had represented factories such as, Norm Neblett, Frank Stopa,
Cliff Geers, Jim Coleman sr., Gary Green, George Diefebaugh, Don Mannino,
Del Fandrich and many, many others as well as all of the fine independent
technicians and rebuilders that have chosen to teach their techniques
without being afraid that someone would employ these and get fabulously
wealthy from them.

If you think that because you have spent some of your valuable time to
develop what you consider to be a superior technique or process, why not
remember how much you have benefitted from the vast amount of time others
have spent to ultimately advance the quality of piano technology, and
consider reciprocating.

Mark Story, RPT
Eastern Washington University
mstory@ewu.edu