Since this posting was given anonymously, without any background, and is fishing for a collective group judgement and condemnation against me (Joe) and Peter, I'll provide the background.
First, the inquirer he didn't identify himself. The question is (either directly or indirectly) coming from Ron Davis, an American living for several decades in LaPaz Bolivia. His organization, Campo Nuevo, is focused on appropriate technologies for the camposinos or poor native farmers in the high Andes, including low cost greenhouses, water tanks and a water motor used to drive a variety of devices such as saws, grain mills, alternators etc. from a water turbine. http://www.watermotor.net Ron, Peter and I are among the earliest members of this group. Some 7 or so years ago after exchanging emails and turbine pictures, Peter mailed me an envelope of turgo spoons that he had obtained from the inventory held by the widow of the man who designed and produced them - some distance north of Peter's location in Sweden. I built a runner for my system in Idaho using the larger orange spoons, and for another fellow in Boone North Carolina using the smaller size blue spoons before Ron came into the picture. I had read about Ron's work with the watermotor and asked if he was interested to see how these little turgo runners would perform in his system in place of a pair of plastic 100mm pcd Pelton runners. He bought a set of blue spoons (at a cost equal to what I paid Peter who in turn bought them from the estate of their designer - because of my appreciation of Ron situation and the humanitarian cause he was addressing). I also gave Ron a hub set. He was happy that he got more power from one runner than he had previously from two and ordered some more blue spoons along with a few of the larger orange spoons. He has not requested to order anything since. Enough time has passed that I can't recall whether it was before ordering the orange spoons, or shortly after that he mentioned his interest in casting metal copies of them locally. I inquired of Peter and we agreed that it would be appropriate to pay an amount equal to half the sales price of a plastic spoon if people wanted to copy the spoons, so that the widow could receive something for the copied parts. I told Ron of this agreement, and offered to buy some of his castings from him at a sufficient markup so that the expense of the royalty would be covered. He never replied to my offer. I offered to personally pay the royalty if he would tell me how many he has sold. He never replied to that offer either, but instead keeps harrassing us as to our right to collect the royalty. We have never claimed to own a patent on the design, nor have we threatened any legal action. Neither have I refuse to sell him spoons because of his failure to abide by our request. And, it has probably been 5-6 years since I have brought up the issue with Ron. So what this comes down to is that we said to Ron if we are going to sell you just a few plastic spoons so that you can copy them, we request that you pay a royalty on the copies that you sell. His watermoter with the plastic blue spoons sells on his web site for 480 USD (plus shipping), I was charging him 40 USD (no markup at all) for a set of the plastic spoons. His watermotor with the copied orange spoons sells for 695 USD (plus shipping), the royalty would have been 32 USD. Somehow the idea of paying a design royalty on direct physical copies offends him, and he feels that the design should be public domain. We aren't talking about the general concept of a turgo runner - which is public domain, we're talking about a copy made by a rubber mold directly around one of the plastic parts we provided him. He is free like anyone else to sit down at a CAD system to design a part and email the file to a mold maker who can use CAM software to machine the mold. Now some things have changed since then. Peter has bought all the inventory, tooling and any interest in the design from the man's estate. So, Peter now owns it, whatever there is to own. Also, Peter and I have jointly invested in precision CNC machined metal molds for waxes used in precision investment castings of these parts. These parts are cast not in bronze or recycled aluminum, but in a high strength and hardness, heat treated stainless turbine alloy. We are also now designing similar, but not identically scaled spoons in other sizes (using an elliptical profile mathematically optimized to closely match the cylinder/hemisphere design of the plastic parts). We have considerable investment in the wax molds and foundry setup charges. We feel it perfectly justifyable, even without worldwide patent coverage to request as terms of sale that anyone wanting to make copies directly imprinted from any of these parts be willing to negotiate a per copy royalty. However no one has been interested as the price and quality of the parts we offer are good enough that such effort is not justified. I have a full time job as a research engineer, and am not trying to make a living from selling hydro parts. Rather I'm trying to increase the scope of products that are offered to cover as many site needs as possible. Again, this is not an issue that I'm raising, but since Ron has raised it in public, I'll address it in public. You can draw your own conclusions. Joe http://h-hydro.com --- In [email protected], poco baya <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > Does anyone in this group know if Joseph Hartvigsen or Peter Rutyer of Cargo and Kraft have any right to collect "royalty" payments on the turgo runner design they sell? > > ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Get fast access to your favorite Yahoo! Groups. Make Yahoo! your home page http://us.click.yahoo.com/dpRU5A/wUILAA/yQLSAA/FGYolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Does your company feature in the microhydro business directory at http://microhydropower.net/directory ? If not, please register free of charge and be exposed to the microhydro community world wide! NOTE: The advertisements in this email are added by Yahoogroups who provides us with free email group services. The microhydro-group does not endorse products or support the advertisements in any way. 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