segway scooter scematics

Not sure of the exact article you are referring to, but take a look at:

Probably what you are looking for.

Scott

P.S. BTW, this was found by typing "segway build" into google and it was the top item on the list...

BTW, a recent article in the paper said the Segways have been recalled because they have a tendency to flip over when the batteries get weak.

-------------------- It was a simple firmware fix, big deal.

-Steve

Good. BTW, from a practical viewpoint, what do people do when their segway batteries run down a few miles from home? Does the interface give fair warning of low batteries - as in "how many miles worth of energy are left"?

Maybe Segway will create "Segway-tows" -- AAA for disabld machines. They'll tow you to the nearest recharge station.

Anyway, the idea of "copying" a Segway from a schematic is a bit of a lark, as it's protected by so many patents it would make any lawyer blush. Even building one for yourself would not be legal. Of course, we're all law abiding robot builders around here, right?...

-- Gordon Author: Constructing Robot Bases (Forthcoming) Robot Builder's Sourcebook, Robot Builder's Bonanza

Patents do not prevent you from building one for yourself. It's explicitly permitted.

However, the schematics would be mostly useless. A battery, a pair of high power bridge motor controllers, and a microcontroller. It's the software that's interesting.

From the US Patent Office:

"The right conferred by the patent grant is, in the language of the statute and of the grant itself, "the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling" the invention in the United States or "importing the invention into the United States."

Note the first item: "making." It's a common misconception that patents only apply to commercial sale. They have always applied to private use as well.

One could argue that reproducing a patented invention would be required to test its validity -- and that would mean having to build it. But the USPTO hasn't required models in years. The validity of the patent is supposed to be apparent just from the filing.

-- Gordon Author: Constructing Robot Bases (Forthcoming) Robot Builder's Sourcebook, Robot Builder's Bonanza

-------------------- Wrong, I have the case law cites someplace that show that the term "make" in that paragraph refers only to making with the INTENT to sell elsewhere, preventing the manufacture of something in the USA that is not sold here but is then exported and sold elsewhere. A few early cases put an end to prosecutions for people making their own of anything revealed in a patent.

-Steve

Think about it. Throughout the industrial revolution most users of a patented product would have made (and used) their own. Most of these devices were simple in construction, using only basic wood and metal working. This hardly would have been worthwhile for the patent process, now would it. Decades of patents that would have been reproduced by every farmer, factory merchant, and railroad baron, just because they could make it for themselves and slipstream past patent law.

But I'm game. Cite the case law. (And not just the very narrow case law that allows for scholarly research, but NOT for continued use.)

-- Gordon Author: Constructing Robot Bases (Forthcoming) Robot Builder's Sourcebook, Robot Builder's Bonanza

---------------------- Nonsense, as now, most high technology then was incapable of being manufactured by most folks who needed it, in their homes and garages.

---------------------- Which is why they weren't patented and weren't eligible for patent.

------------------------ They did, where they could. Mostly they couldn't, they were neither technically competent, nor lived near a patent repositority so they could research whatever the hell it was they had wanted. If a farmer who was a blacksmith saw something of metal and wanted a few, he made them, this was done for thousands of years. Those who didn't have those skills bought them or did without.

In the case of a railroad baron, that would be making them for corporate profit, and would be actionable because a corporation is not an individual and has no "skills".

------------------------------ I'm looking, but it was published one of the last times this all came up once before, either a couple or four years back. I'm sure I saved it, but my CD indexing is poor. Anyone recall or have that?

-Steve

Who said patents are limited to high technology? Do you consider a water valve at the end of a wood float to be high technology? It was once patented, used off-the-shelf parts stuck together, and is now part of most every toilet.

I'd be interested if you could find it. And I'm sure you will find

*something*, but I think you'll discover the case law you mention would not specify "build" as having any such EXCLUSIVE meaning, as you say. If courts went around doing that, they would invalidate countless previous cases where words were defined with other meanings. What they *do* rule on is language of *inclusion*, applying a word/phrase in a statute to also cover the current ruling.

You could also save yourself some time, visit the uspto.gov site, and look through their statutes and case law.

If you do find there is an unlimited personal use exemption, Steve, you will surprise quite a number of intellectual property lawyers...

-- Gordon Author: Constructing Robot Bases (Forthcoming) Robot Builder's Sourcebook, Robot Builder's Bonanza

--------------- And people had used it previously for all sorts of things, you can bet on it.

--------------- One thing I note is that there is NO enforcement activity upon ANY single "make" violation, and from the way the enforcement provision is worded, it even LOOKS as though it cannot BE enforced unless it is "made for sale".

------------------- Like I have time?

[]

---------------- That would be an affirmative provision, which wouldn't be needed to make all such unenforcable without any "making for sale".

Also lawyers are weasels, you'd never find the law to be coherent or consistent, as lawyers invariably lobby against that.

But it violates the heart of individual freedom characterized in the Constitution, the right of people to pursue happiness, and the implied and accepted right to experiment that is even INHERENT in the founding documents of patent law to interfere in ANY WAY with what an individual does privately. Wouldn't make it past the SCotUS.

-Steve

No, I just don't consider them that interesting. A Piezo rate gyro, or accelerometers would work.

There's an article in yesterday's NYTimes [16 Oct 2003] about Trevor Blackwell's scooter. The guy's famous already - it says his site has attracted 100s of 1000s of visits.

TB built his segway 1/off in 2 weeks for $2000, but says it lacks a lot of the safeguards, redundancies, etc of the real segway.

Article says Carla Valone, a spokesperson for Segway, would not comment on whether she thought TB's scooter infringed upon company patents. TB said, while he is not a lawyer, "... he assumed his project falls under an exemption in patent law involving research in advancing the art...".