Wired Design | Wired.com: Electronics supplier SparkFun designs dozens of products a year and they haven’t patented a single one. It’s worked out pretty well so far.
SparkFun is a DIY hardware supplier. It makes its living by shipping kits and components like bread boards, servo motors and Arduino parts to a mixture of students, hobbyists, and professionals making prototypes. Most of the stuff they sell is sourced from other suppliers, but where the company has made its name is in a stable of its own custom parts and kits, the designs for which it gives away for free.
2 comments:
A little surprising, interesting, logical, impressive. I guess I just never thought about whether or not a company like this would patent their product or not...it's such an expected practice in this age. One way or another it's stellar that SparkFun is the company they are.
This seems like a great type of company to work for. They aren't in it for the money they are in it because they love what they are doing and making the world better. Not patenting everything doesn't seem to hurt their income at all and it makes them have more fans. It seems to me that the fashion analogy also works really well with theatre. The work we do can by copyrighted but for the most part we don't bother chasing down other theatres that use similar effects or designs. At the same time rights to plays and music are held tightly in our world. I think that I would much rather buy from or work at a company that gives away their ideas and only holds back their physical labor.
At the same time I understand how many people would find it hard to accept the idea of giving away all your plans so that your competition can use them against you. This is an interesting problem that I suspect will become larger in the public attention over the next ten years as more groups try this open model.
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