I don't think many here have a program that will assess a part, produce files from that to make patterns and CNC cut the mould.

There are a few here who use CNC for pattern making but not many of those machine the cavity.

J

Edited By JasonB on 24/04/2016 08:02:47

Yes lots of people are constantly infringing this so called "patent" but that's what it's for! The idea is to patent a very basic set of situations that seem very likely to occur in quantity and then sit down and wait until a large multi-national that's worth the time, money and effort to chase, falls into the net……then, a flurry of legal eagles will sort out how much the multi-national needs to pay to continue it's highly profitable activities.

These highly speculative 'catch-all' type patents were very common during the period that this one was written as it was considered to be a profitable fishing method for American patent lawyers and small(er) companies, although some larger concerns were also 'guilty'. You might remember that the large American software companies such as Adobe and Microsoft etc tried to patent the file types used by the main camera makers such as Nikon? They hoped that by taking out strategic patents on the file criteria that they would be able to gain a finacial foot in the door with the largest japanese camera and electronic groups but this failed in court.

These sort of largely spurious and speculative patent operations were essentially held back by UK patent legislation pre EU because UK law insisted on a degree of innovation in every patent….But American business was able to essentially change this in US patent law.

But if you were an injection moulder machining moulds, I'd guess you'd use CAD to generate CNC instructions.

Or do you?

Nah, don't think we should sell our equipment just yet

The key bits that they were clever about, reading the patent, was having a set of standard (injection) tool designs that the software can select from data sent by customer ….. along with all of the other steps. We (I) don't do that.

I'm surprised they could get a patent for that, but they must have been ahead of their time. Actually they built a great business from the concept and still offer fast tooling and CNC parts from a STEP file over the internet. I have used them many times for work.

Cheers Will

.

@Will They don't have standard tool designs, right? Isn't it that their software just picks one from their set of endmills so that they could start machining automatically without an engineer setting things up manually?

Edited By John Munroe on 24/04/2016 09:03:02

The practise of mould making by cnc machines was being done way before this patent was lodged, it also states "receiving a file from a customer" so any all in house method would not infringe the patent.

It is everyday practise now to make moulds for laminated fuselages and wings to produce highly stressed model aircraft, these are cut by cnc machines. This is not ME as understood on this forum, we seem to draw a line between aeromodelling and model engineering.

I agree with Bob that the patent is no doubt lodged in the hope that one day it can be used to sue some wealthy company, I fail to understand why the patent was accepted when such practises had been used for years prior to the lodge date.

Emgee

@Emgee Don't you mean in-house methods would infringe rather than wouldn't infringe the patent?

No infringements here, as Jason says the patent covers the software which accesses the CAD design as submitted and then generates an optimum machine path to make the desired mold. I do not think anyone here is doing that step by way of software.

I thought patents applied to the commercial use of an idea, making one offs for our own use we are free to do what we like.

Mike

That patent is certainly invalid. If I search my old files I can find evidence that I was sending CAD files to a mould maker in Malaysia who were doing just that in the mid to late 1990s.

Even if it were valid we would not be infringing it as patents only apply to commercial use, not individual use.

Russell.