I did a bit of research. Can’t say I’m pleased with what the results turned up.
Yup, Duncan has in fact patented 5A. This, I feel, for the entire yoyo community, is going to not go well. I agree that people are saying that this has the potential to prevent this whole area from moving forward.
It does appear that Duncan doesn’t want to aggressively enforce ALL areas of the patent, but what they do choose to enforce makes this entire topic a grey area. This lack of consistency and the doors it opens for legal action at any given point in time is really something that I bet in general is making the industry very uncomfortable.
Now, I could understand patenting a counterweight with a bearing, but the patent would have to be super specific because there are different types of bearings and different ways to do things. I could understand patenting a specific yoyo design, which would be all inclusive to the yoyo as a whole. No doubt this is a more popular thing to do, mostly to protect intellectual property rights to prevent people from just copying something else.
But to patent a style of play? Sorry, but to me that sounds just plain greedy. A bit of incomplete research credits Steve Brown with inventing the style, which is rather well known, and it appears that he owned a patent on it. I get the impression that the patent was more to protect the intellectual property while providing proof of establishment. Or in other words, a legal way of proving who is going to credited with the creation/founding of this style. The patent was in turn sold to Duncan, in exchange, it appears that Steve Brown will be getting some sort of royalties based on the sale of items sold based on Duncan’s brand of items covered by the patent, or items sold by third parties under the licensing agreement done through Duncan.
Now, I haven’t read the patent yet. Even so, the way most are written these days, unless you’re a lawyer with a double major in bullcrap and doublespeak, these things can be exceptionally difficult to read. Again I’m new. I went in knowing a little about looping tricks, seen some 2A(didn’t know it had a designation) and string tricks. I knew nothing of 3A, 4A and 5A. I saw some 5A video and thought “hey, that’s pretty cool”. Of course, that video was a Steve Brown video, which I haven’t been able to find since, but that’s not important. I thought to myself I could buy a wood bead at a craft store, stick a button on it with a loop, put the string through it so it’s clean in appearance and then string the yoyo normally after that. But according to the patent, based on discussion, it appears that even if you’re going to DIY, Duncan can come by and slap a lawsuit on you for patent violation. I would never have thought of 5A type ideas on my own without seeing the videos, much less that someone would patent 5A as whole. Seeing the videos, I would like to be able to do some 5A stuff. But now that I’ve researched the topic, it almost seems a miracle Duncan doesn’t go get lawsuit fever and slap everyone with a restraining order at all yoyo contests, place an injunction against YouTube for having 5A videos and order a global cease and desist order to the planet saying that unless you use Duncan parts, you ain’t allowed to do 5A. What’s next, quite literally the yoyo Police? They’ll be a division of the Fashion Police. You get a citation for doing 5A, then a second for your string not matching your shoes and your yoyo not being a proper accessory for your outfit. Can you imagine the holding cell discussions? “What you in for? I’m in for murder”. “I’m in for 5A yoyo”. You can bet who is gonna be the cell block b…!
No wonder nobody really wants to get into the 5A market. No wonder it’s sort of stalling. Now I get it. Now I understand it. And unfortunately, now it makes me angry. The only ways to resolve this are through either lawyers responding as a direct result to lawsuits, or Duncan releasing an official statement detailing which aspects of the patent they intend to enforce, how and why. I’ve also got nothing against companies creating technology and the patenting it and then licensing it out. After all, this IS a business and good ideas are good ideas.
I think what needs to also happen is to let this play out at a corporate level between the yoyo companies. At some point, this will get ugly and the industry as a whole will be forced to really look into this issue and figure out how to come to agreements to resolve the problems. In the meantime, it appears DIY will be the way to go.