Anyone have a good mutual NDA they can share?

[Ricky C]

On Saturday, April 11, 2020 at 12:50:58 PM UTC-4, bitrex wrote:

On 4/11/2020 12:16 PM, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Sat, 11 Apr 2020 07:44:00 -0700, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com
wrote:

On Sat, 11 Apr 2020 07:07:41 -0700 (PDT), speff <spehro@gmail.com
wrote:

As title, looking for something that is reasonably fair to both parties, not the usual master-slave boilerplate bs.

Thanks for any pointers,

--Spehro Pefhany

There seems to be an industry-standard one that is fair to both
parties and makes perfect sense. But it's Saturday morning and I don't
think I have one here at home. I'll poke around, and certainly get you
one on Monday.

I could tell stories.

I found one on a backup drive and edited out the other company's name.
I'll email it to you. We don't even need an NDA!

It didn't stop them from stealing a schematic at a design review and
giving it to a competitor, who copied our equalized line driver
circuit. But they got caught.

It did make us a lot of money when they found that they couldn't
design us out, because they'd acknowleged our IP ownership. That's the
advantage of an NDA for people like us: we can lock down a big fish.

We have refused to sign NDAs that gave the big corp lifetime rights to
everything we ever did or would do. That's insane but people still
try.


Official-sounding NDAs that I get sent sometimes from small-time clients
seem to make them feel better but often contain provisions that are
laughably un-enforcable and over-broad like I owe you 1 billion dollars
if I ever speak to anyone about this for the rest of my life. but a real
lawyer signed that! so it must be the law

They use numbers like 1 billion dollars to make you understand you will never own anything again if you cross the Rubicon. The same sort of deterrence being able to bomb the entire planet 100 times has.

Even to a large company a billion dollars is a lot of money. Ask Volkswagen.

--

Rick C.

+ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
+ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Ricky C]

On Saturday, April 11, 2020 at 4:58:30 PM UTC-4, bitrex wrote:

On 4/11/2020 4:28 PM, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

The LEFTIST COURT SYSTEMS of California and Massachusetts for that
matter tend to have little-guy-friendly views about large corporations
throwing their weight around like that e.g.

https://www.factmag.com/2018/06/20/behringer-dave-smith-libel-case/

Piss the hell off, China-assholes!

Clear copyright violation.



Seems unlikely, Behringer is pretty smart about staying within the
letter of the law on stuff like that, if not the spirit. It's a
cable-tester, the circuit is not novel or under patent protection, and
there are many knock-off designs of it by other companies, too.

It's legal to copy a circuit design that's not patented. It's not
legal to copy the lettering and fonts and general graphics. Copyright
law protects stuff like that.
They didn't copy the fonts or logos at all as far as I can see, the
overall logo-style looks rather different. No reasonable person would
mistake them as being made by the same company it says "BEHRINGER" in
big letters in their own logo-design on the top.

The layout of the jacks and LEDs are the same and the functional labels
of those parts are the same, you can't design-copyright the placement of
a jack that says "IN" or an LED that says "POWER" as far as I know.
those are pure-functional elements.

Really? The things that have been copyright protected are smaller details than that. The issue of confusing one brand with another would be a part of trademark law, not copyright.

Just as you can't copyright a title, you can't copyright a switch and label.. But put enough switches, jacks, indicators and labels together and you have a copyrightable look and feel to an instrument. It doesn't have to be pixels on a screen to be copyrighted.

--

Rick C.

-+ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
-+ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Ricky C]

On Saturday, April 11, 2020 at 1:00:22 PM UTC-4, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On Sat, 11 Apr 2020 12:50:53 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

On 4/11/2020 12:16 PM, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Sat, 11 Apr 2020 07:44:00 -0700, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com
wrote:

On Sat, 11 Apr 2020 07:07:41 -0700 (PDT), speff <spehro@gmail.com
wrote:

As title, looking for something that is reasonably fair to both parties, not the usual master-slave boilerplate bs.

Thanks for any pointers,

--Spehro Pefhany

There seems to be an industry-standard one that is fair to both
parties and makes perfect sense. But it's Saturday morning and I don't
think I have one here at home. I'll poke around, and certainly get you
one on Monday.

I could tell stories.

I found one on a backup drive and edited out the other company's name.
I'll email it to you. We don't even need an NDA!

It didn't stop them from stealing a schematic at a design review and
giving it to a competitor, who copied our equalized line driver
circuit. But they got caught.

It did make us a lot of money when they found that they couldn't
design us out, because they'd acknowleged our IP ownership. That's the
advantage of an NDA for people like us: we can lock down a big fish.

We have refused to sign NDAs that gave the big corp lifetime rights to
everything we ever did or would do. That's insane but people still
try.


Official-sounding NDAs that I get sent sometimes from small-time clients
seem to make them feel better but often contain provisions that are
laughably un-enforcable and over-broad like I owe you 1 billion dollars
if I ever speak to anyone about this for the rest of my life. but a real
lawyer signed that! so it must be the law

Big companies will also ask you to indemnify them against billions of
dollars of liabilities, and prove that you have insurance policies to
that effect. Nice try.

No one asks you to carry "billions" of dollars of insurance. They may ask for millions of insurance (I was), but I doubt any insurance company would issue a billion dollar policy liability policy. If you are a company that might run into such a case, you likely would be better off self insuring.

--

Rick C.

-- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
-- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[bitrex]

On 4/11/2020 7:25 PM, Ricky C wrote:

On Saturday, April 11, 2020 at 4:58:30 PM UTC-4, bitrex wrote:
On 4/11/2020 4:28 PM, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

The LEFTIST COURT SYSTEMS of California and Massachusetts for that
matter tend to have little-guy-friendly views about large corporations
throwing their weight around like that e.g.

https://www.factmag.com/2018/06/20/behringer-dave-smith-libel-case/

Piss the hell off, China-assholes!

Clear copyright violation.



Seems unlikely, Behringer is pretty smart about staying within the
letter of the law on stuff like that, if not the spirit. It's a
cable-tester, the circuit is not novel or under patent protection, and
there are many knock-off designs of it by other companies, too.

It's legal to copy a circuit design that's not patented. It's not
legal to copy the lettering and fonts and general graphics. Copyright
law protects stuff like that.
They didn't copy the fonts or logos at all as far as I can see, the
overall logo-style looks rather different. No reasonable person would
mistake them as being made by the same company it says "BEHRINGER" in
big letters in their own logo-design on the top.

The layout of the jacks and LEDs are the same and the functional labels
of those parts are the same, you can't design-copyright the placement of
a jack that says "IN" or an LED that says "POWER" as far as I know.
those are pure-functional elements.

Really? The things that have been copyright protected are smaller details than that. The issue of confusing one brand with another would be a part of trademark law, not copyright.

Just as you can't copyright a title, you can't copyright a switch and label. But put enough switches, jacks, indicators and labels together and you have a copyrightable look and feel to an instrument. It doesn't have to be pixels on a screen to be copyrighted.

Behrigner has been sued successfully one time I think when they lifted
source code for a digital delay or something and it was proved their
product's binary was the same, that was a slam-dunk.

 

[bitrex]

On 4/11/2020 7:25 PM, Ricky C wrote:

On Saturday, April 11, 2020 at 4:58:30 PM UTC-4, bitrex wrote:
On 4/11/2020 4:28 PM, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

The LEFTIST COURT SYSTEMS of California and Massachusetts for that
matter tend to have little-guy-friendly views about large corporations
throwing their weight around like that e.g.

https://www.factmag.com/2018/06/20/behringer-dave-smith-libel-case/

Piss the hell off, China-assholes!

Clear copyright violation.



Seems unlikely, Behringer is pretty smart about staying within the
letter of the law on stuff like that, if not the spirit. It's a
cable-tester, the circuit is not novel or under patent protection, and
there are many knock-off designs of it by other companies, too.

It's legal to copy a circuit design that's not patented. It's not
legal to copy the lettering and fonts and general graphics. Copyright
law protects stuff like that.
They didn't copy the fonts or logos at all as far as I can see, the
overall logo-style looks rather different. No reasonable person would
mistake them as being made by the same company it says "BEHRINGER" in
big letters in their own logo-design on the top.

The layout of the jacks and LEDs are the same and the functional labels
of those parts are the same, you can't design-copyright the placement of
a jack that says "IN" or an LED that says "POWER" as far as I know.
those are pure-functional elements.

Really? The things that have been copyright protected are smaller details than that. The issue of confusing one brand with another would be a part of trademark law, not copyright.

Just as you can't copyright a title, you can't copyright a switch and label. But put enough switches, jacks, indicators and labels together and you have a copyrightable look and feel to an instrument. It doesn't have to be pixels on a screen to be copyrighted.

Nothing on the layout/component situation on that cable-tester box has
"secondary meaning" as far as I can tell, it's all functional, so "trade
dress" would seem difficult. it's a box. with knobs and jacks and
buttons and lights.

There are many brands of e.g. microwave ovens whose control panels all
seem pretty similar maybe even some near-identical to each other, has
any manufacturer ever sued another over the layout of a microwave oven
control panel?

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functionality_doctrine>

The standard of infringing "look and feel" seems strict from the few
cases I could find like:

<https://www.b2ipreport.com/swip-report/copying-the-look-and-feel-of-tetris-is-software-copyright-infringement/>

"The court noted that 'if one has to squint to find distinctions only at
a granular level, then the works are likely to be substantially similar.'"

You definitely don't have to look at those two boxes at a "granular
level" to see they're not the same product, despite being functionally
almost identical probably. All the non-functional elements like the
color scheme and logo are different.

They probably didn't even file for any of this stuff. It doesn't seem
like a slam-dunk case by any means, the original manufacturer hasn't
tried to sue over it. Would be a big risk I think, particularly cuz one
thing liberal and conservative court justices seem to agree on is that
if your IP-lawsuit gets dismissed as frivolous you really take the
shaft. doubtful any legal firm would want to take it on there's no money
in this one.

 

[boB]

On Sat, 11 Apr 2020 07:07:41 -0700 (PDT), speff <spehro@gmail.com>
wrote:

As title, looking for something that is reasonably fair to both parties, not the usual master-slave boilerplate bs.

Thanks for any pointers,

--Spehro Pefhany

Looks like you may have some good information and samples coming.

I have one for our company too if you want it.

Our NDA for engineers only or contractors basically just says that you
won't tell our secrets to competing companies.

Nothing that gives us the IP for anything they do on their own time
and also NO no-compete clause.

I hate No-Competes so none of that nonsense.

boB

 

[Ricky C]

On Saturday, April 11, 2020 at 11:34:08 PM UTC-4, bitrex wrote:

On 4/11/2020 7:25 PM, Ricky C wrote:
On Saturday, April 11, 2020 at 4:58:30 PM UTC-4, bitrex wrote:
On 4/11/2020 4:28 PM, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

The LEFTIST COURT SYSTEMS of California and Massachusetts for that
matter tend to have little-guy-friendly views about large corporations
throwing their weight around like that e.g.

https://www.factmag.com/2018/06/20/behringer-dave-smith-libel-case/

Piss the hell off, China-assholes!

Clear copyright violation.



Seems unlikely, Behringer is pretty smart about staying within the
letter of the law on stuff like that, if not the spirit. It's a
cable-tester, the circuit is not novel or under patent protection, and
there are many knock-off designs of it by other companies, too.

It's legal to copy a circuit design that's not patented. It's not
legal to copy the lettering and fonts and general graphics. Copyright
law protects stuff like that.
They didn't copy the fonts or logos at all as far as I can see, the
overall logo-style looks rather different. No reasonable person would
mistake them as being made by the same company it says "BEHRINGER" in
big letters in their own logo-design on the top.

The layout of the jacks and LEDs are the same and the functional labels
of those parts are the same, you can't design-copyright the placement of
a jack that says "IN" or an LED that says "POWER" as far as I know.
those are pure-functional elements.

Really? The things that have been copyright protected are smaller details than that. The issue of confusing one brand with another would be a part of trademark law, not copyright.

Just as you can't copyright a title, you can't copyright a switch and label. But put enough switches, jacks, indicators and labels together and you have a copyrightable look and feel to an instrument. It doesn't have to be pixels on a screen to be copyrighted.


Nothing on the layout/component situation on that cable-tester box has
"secondary meaning" as far as I can tell, it's all functional, so "trade
dress" would seem difficult. it's a box. with knobs and jacks and
buttons and lights.

There are many brands of e.g. microwave ovens whose control panels all
seem pretty similar maybe even some near-identical to each other, has
any manufacturer ever sued another over the layout of a microwave oven
control panel?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functionality_doctrine

You have failed to appreciate your own reference. Reread the very first sentence and you will see we are talking about two different things. Later they address copyright.

The standard of infringing "look and feel" seems strict from the few
cases I could find like:

https://www.b2ipreport.com/swip-report/copying-the-look-and-feel-of-tetris-is-software-copyright-infringement/

"The court noted that 'if one has to squint to find distinctions only at
a granular level, then the works are likely to be substantially similar.'"

You definitely don't have to look at those two boxes at a "granular
level" to see they're not the same product, despite being functionally
almost identical probably. All the non-functional elements like the
color scheme and logo are different.

Again, you seem to be confusing the issues involved in copyright with the issues in trademark. It isn't about looking enough like the competitor so your brand is distinct, it is about copying the elements that constitute "protectable expression". The second paragraph in this reference described the "protectable expression" which is very analogous to the copied elements in these designs. "number and configuration of playing pieces" which is analogous to the number and configuration of controls, indicators and connectors. "size of the playing field" which is analogous to the size and shape of the box, etc., etc...


> They probably didn't even file for any of this stuff.

Most likely because of the cost of such a suit and the distraction it would have presented more than anything else. That could have prevented them from a mounting a defense in the suit by the infringing competitor regarding the remarks in the online forum, but they decided to take a stand.

It doesn't seem
like a slam-dunk case by any means, the original manufacturer hasn't
tried to sue over it. Would be a big risk I think, particularly cuz one
thing liberal and conservative court justices seem to agree on is that
if your IP-lawsuit gets dismissed as frivolous you really take the
shaft. doubtful any legal firm would want to take it on there's no money
in this one.

Frivolous is not the same thing as losing. Clearly in this case there was copying. The only issue was whether it constitutes copyright infringement. Everything else you said is just your opinion which has much less value than this law suit might have.

--

Rick C.

+- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
+- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209