Wapin Bridge

[Richard Brekne]

I really dont know the answer to this Allan. I just remember reading a press
release a few years back where Steinway gave the rational for droping their
patents. It was simply that if one wanted to build a piano employing all these
ideas... and do a top notch job of it resulting in a great piano,,,, it would
cost one heck of a lot of money, and that would be just as expensive as the
Steinway was so there was really no problem. Further they recognized the
futility in trying to "protect" things that were copied  (often blatantly and
often with less then brilliant results) in so many ways anyways. I got a list
from S&S Hamburg some months ago of all these released patents with numbers
attached, but lost it when my puter crashed permantly a few weeks ago. You can
write them e-mail and most certainly get the list.

"Allan L. Gilreath, RPT" wrote:

> Richard,
>
> Purely out of curiosity, what unexpired patents are the S folks using in
> current production?  Most of the ones that I can think of date back quite a
> few years...
>
> Allan
> Allan L. Gilreath, RPT
> agilreath@mindspring.com
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-pianotech@ptg.org [mailto:owner-pianotech@ptg.org]On Behalf Of
> Richard Brekne
> Sent: Tuesday, February 15, 2000 4:44 PM
> To: pianotech@ptg.org
> Subject: Re: Wapin Bridge
>
> I got just one thing to say to this... no dissrespect intended mind you..
> grin
>
> BALONEY !
>
> If there is a reason why we have such a poor industry..it is more likely
> that
> it has to do with an over emphasis a protectionist mode of competing. Put
> plainly it dont mean a darn who knows your secrets... they will find them
> out
> anyways... All that matters in the end is who is best at putting them into
> practice..
>
> Perhaps you were not aware that even Steinway gave up on holding on too
> these
> patents with such an over driven sense of protectionism... They, in the end,
> realized...... information is only a relatively small part of the picture
> after all.
>
> Grin... soapboxes are kinda fun arent they ??
>
> Larry J Messerly wrote:
>
> > And this is one reason why we have such a poor industry as far as
> > reimbursing creative talent.  People photocopying books deprive authors
> > of legitimate pay for their time and talent, people copying musical tapes
> > or discs now, deprive the performer, and composer of legitimate income.
> > If we really want to deprive this country of creative talent and
> > incentive to improve, lets just get rid of the patent office and
> > copyright laws and level the playing field to mediocrity.
> >
> > Larry Messerly (On his soapbox)
> >
> > >
> > > Be that as it may.. the patent office is open for viewing and I
> > > personally am
> > > going to download a copy of whatever I find on Wapin and figure it
> > > out on my
> > > own.
>
> --
> Richard Brekne
> Associate PTG, N.P.T.F.
> Bergen, Norway

--
Richard Brekne
Associate PTG, N.P.T.F.
Bergen, Norway