Fluke owns trademark on multimeters with "contrasting yellow border"

https://www.sparkfun.com/news/1428

by unwind • 12 years ago

167 195 12 years ago

And now we see that this isn't just a problem with software. Who knew?

e: Apparently everyone thinks I'm confusing a trademark with a copyright or a patent, but I'm not. We just got done with several weeks of people screaming their heads off about King's attempt to trademark the word "Candy".

In this thread, everyone is defending Fluke because this yellow outline is a distinguishing mark on their product, and these multimeters DO look like ripoffs. And you know what, I agree. But how is this any different from what everyone was up at arms about only a few weeks ago?

colanderman2• 12 years ago

Exactly what software trademarks are you talking about? Linux™? Adobe™ Photoshop™?

stackcollision2• 12 years ago

Didn't we just get over 3 weeks of people screaming about King's trademark attempt on "Candy"?

viggity• 12 years ago

this is a trademark issue, not a patent issue, although both are handled by USPTO

rtkwe6• 12 years ago

This is trademark not patent or copyright.

rayiner6• 12 years ago

The reason people view trademarks as less problematic is:

1) They are arbitrary and not functional. It doesn't make a difference to the multimeter whether it's yellow or red.

2) Silicon Valley has an existential interest in the $500+ billion advertising industry, which is built on trademarks and branding.

MichaelGG• 12 years ago

3) Trademarks benefit the end-users in a very direct manner. If I buy a specific brand that's labelled then I can feel fairly confident it is the correct product. (Unless the company has changed quality on the same branded product, like Pyrex or Thinkpad.)

colanderman2• 12 years ago

And UPS has a trademark on brown delivery trucks: http://www.ups.com/media/en/trademarks.pdf It's limited in scope and serves to distinguish the brand. Seems reasonable to protect it.

hdevalence• 12 years ago

FTFA:

Yellow is awfully broad: In my mind, multimeters have always been yellow. I’ve never had the opportunity to own a Fluke-branded DMM so I’m not sure where my brain picked up this association. I can respect trademarks and company branding and I respect Fluke’s reputation for high-quality multimeters. If Fluke wants to own a color I would expect the USPTO to require them to assign an exact color just like Tiffany’s did with Tiffany Blue. But allowing a company to trademark ‘yellow’ seems broad.

This is the diagram in the trademark filing, describing what kind of yellow border is covered:

https://cdn.sparkfun.com/assets/home_page_posts/1/4/2/8/Roug...

What could be more clear and limited in scope?

rbanffy• 12 years ago

My current multimeter is blue. The previous one was yellow. It's predecessor was black.

In any case, the punishment seems a little harsh. They could probably arrive an arrangement where the yellow parts would be replaced by some other color and the multimeters could still be sold. Warning shots are acceptable practice.

bhousel3• 12 years ago

I don't see a problem with this. Fluke is a respected brand with a unique appearance. These multimeters really do look like Fluke ripoffs.

simonster• 12 years ago

I agree that having to destroy a shipment of perfectly usable multimeters sucks, but this seems like a pretty clear cut case of trademark violation to me. That multimeter really does look like a Fluke multimeter (see https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=fluke+multimeter). It was probably designed that way on purpose, probably because Fluke has a reputation for manufacturing high-quality multimeters, and someone could confuse it with a Fluke multimeter at a glance.

Malarkey73• 12 years ago

Multimeters here in the UK are almost always yellow (or red less often). They've been mostly yellow as long as I can remember and I've never heard of Fluke.

gjm11• 12 years ago

A bit of googling turns up this forum thread with lots of pictures of old (and not so old) multimeters. A few typical pages: http://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/show-your-multimeter!/540/ http://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/show-your-multimeter!/465/

Lots and lots of not-yellow multimeters, and the dark-with-yellow-surround ones do generally seems to be Flukes.

But not quite all. There are some exceptions here: http://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/show-your-multimeter!/315/ but I think they may all be recent enough to postdate Fluke's trademark (which I think was granted in 2003).

rtkwe6• 12 years ago

It's the dark grey/black face + the yellow shell/border that's the problem here. It's really similar to Fluke's usual design.

makomk5• 12 years ago

Essentially any multimeter design with a dark body and yellow or orange surround would look just as much like a Fluke multimeter - scroll down to Exhibit 1 in the PDF, they haven't exactly been consistent in the design of their multimeters. (Probably any design with a red surround too since some of Fluke's multimeters have those.)

solve5• 12 years ago

On the other hand, there's strong evidence that Fluke is using excessive anti-competitive practices to manipulate multimeter prices. Evidence:

1) Multimeters can be made for $10 or $15, but Fluke continues to dominate the market with equivalent meters costing 10x more. And don't tell me that these basic multimeters incur significant R&D costs.

"Guilt should be determined in retrospect based on material gain." -- The gold standard for judging extremely powerful companies.

larrys3• 12 years ago

"there's strong evidence that Fluke is using excessive anti-competitive practices"

That's a totally different "crime" if you want to call it that. Has nothing to do with whether a company has the right to trademark a particular design which in this case they apparently do.

rayiner6• 12 years ago

There's nothing particularly anti-competitive about not letting competitors use a particular easily identifiable color scheme associated with your product, largely because it has absolutely no functional impact on the product (and in any case, the product is not one where appearance is typically a factor in peoples' purchasing decisions).

The fact that Fluke can sell $150 multi-meters when they can be made for $15 is because of the substantial value people attach to branding. $100 Ralph Lauren jeans are made for $10 in Vietnam or wherever, and the only piece of that product protected by trademark is the little RL label (fashion designs cannot be protected). But that's all it takes.

bananas8• 12 years ago

Multimeters can be made for $10 or $15, but Fluke continues to dominate the market with equivalent meters costing 10x more. And don't tell me that these basic multimeters incur significant R&D costs.

You've obviously never done any serious electrical or electronics work then. The reason they're so expensive is four reasons:

1. Mains and high voltage work. If you're working with high voltages or massively different potentials, Fluke actually design the boards and isolation circuitry properly. You're not going to get electrocuted by a Fluke meter. It doesn't even take a high voltage, just a bad earth to kill you. Cheap multimeters and even mid range ones tend to ignore this fact in favour of cost.

2. Explosion resistance. If you stick your cheap multimeter in resistance mode and whack ot across a 400v 30A supply its going to blow your hand off. No joke. Fluke - dead meter by design or absolutely nothing and it still carries on working.

3. Reliability. I have a 1989 Fluke 87 that cost me a small fortune. It works fine today, still handles calibration perfectly and is pin sharp and accurate. Other vendors fall to bits, drop out of calibration ranges and pack in completely. I know because I have three meters at any time and the only ones that survive are flukes.

4. They have lesser effect on the circuit you are measuring because the input stage is better designed.

So you're merely putting your life in the hands of a $10 meter.

My current fluke cost me £435 and it was worth every damn penny

Edit: adding some more as I'm not posting this from my phone now:

5. Cheap meters can't do true RMS measurements.

6. Cheap meters have probes without correct insulation.

7. Cheap meters have probes which fall to bits and expose the conductors.

8. Cheap meters have less probe/connection options which are required for more than just passive metering.

9. Cheap meters can't be calibrated at all by calibration services as there is nothing other than a single master voltage reference inside which is usually not a constant current or voltage source but a resistor/voltage divider across the reference voltage. This can drift as batteries drain for example.

10. Decent meters have a better count i.e. 0.00000 vs 0.00 on the displays.

I could go on forever at why a $10 meter is a joke.

JanneVee• 12 years ago

If they are able to take higher price with only the brandname why shouldn't companies be allowed to do that?

Also maybe there are some other issues at play with precision, calibration and/or taking higher voltages/amperage? Or just not blowing up if you try to measure the wrong circuit with way too much power?

IvyMike• 12 years ago

Multimeters can be made for $10 or $15, but Fluke continues to dominate the market with equivalent meters costing 10x more.

Depends what you mean "dominate the market", I guess: go to Amazon or Radio Shack, and most of the multimeters are the cheap and non-Fluke.

Also: Fluke does certainly charge a premium, but they are also not equivalent to the $10 meter. Fluke uses higher-quality (and thus more expensive) components, and it definitely costs them more than $15 to manufacture. This affects the actual electronics to the case to the probes to the buttons.

If you use your meter to measure your batteries and the occasional resistor, you probably don't care. But if you use the meter often, you may start to notice the difference, and that's why people are willing to pay that higher price--it really is worth it to some.

mikeash2• 12 years ago

If they're being anti-competitive then they're doing a completely shit job of it. There are about a million models of cheap multimeters available for purchase from about a million different retailers.

eli2• 12 years ago

Huh? How does expensive equate to "anti-competitive"? If anything, wouldn't really cheap be anti-competitive?

larrys3• 12 years ago

Along those lines here is the actual speciment they submitted when applying for the trademark:

http://tsdr.uspto.gov/documentviewer?caseId=sn75934005&docId...

grmarcil• 12 years ago

To the contrary, check out all the non-Fluke multimeters with gray bodies and yellow surrounds: https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=yellow+multimeter

vilhelm_s• 12 years ago

But should you really be allowed to trademark industrial design? Consider Dell XPS ultrabooks. They are obviously designed to look like a Macbook, but with a Dell logo instead of the Apple logo (http://cdn-static.cnet.co.uk/i/product_media/40002464/image3...). Or think about sport cars, Ferrari has a trademark for their horse logo, but they don't have a monopoly on "a sport car painted red".

I think that is the ideal tradeoff---the logo lets a consumer know what they are buying, but you should still be allowed to buy cheap products that look stylish...

wernercd• 12 years ago

Should T-Mobile be able to trademark the color Magenta and prevent AT&T from using it?

The court says yes: http://www.androidpolice.com/2014/02/08/t-mobile-wins-lawsui...

Why would this be different? Using a known, good name brand like Fluke or T-Mobile... and diluting it's name by making confusing, derivative and lesser products.

Using the color yellow shouldn't be off limits... but using yellow (or magenta) to confuse consumers should be.

rayiner6• 12 years ago

Industrial design cannot be protected, but trade dress can. Trade dress protection is available when a particular, arbitrary and non-functional, design becomes distinctive of a product. For these aspects of design to be protected, it must actually be distinctive of the product (i.e. you can't just claim a mark on the gray/yellow combination, but you have to show, usually through surveys, that the market identifies that design with your product).

Industrial design usually won't qualify because it's functional. The color comes from the use of aluminum, aluminum is used for its structural properties, particular colors have more aesthetic value in the market, etc. Trade dress has to be more specific, not functional, and arbitrary.

A classic example is pink for Owens-Corning insulation. It's a totally arbitrary color choice for a product where aesthetics doesn't factor into buyers' choices, and had become strongly associated in the public with Owens-Corning's brand. If there was a functional reason for the pink color, or it was a situation where people would prefer a certain color for aesthetic reasons, the design choice wouldn't have been eligible for protection.

landhar2• 12 years ago

I'm not a lawyer, but I remember being told during an introductory class to business law in school that the definition of what makes a trademark can be whatever is considered to be so tied to the brand identity that people would immediately assume that the product belongs to the brand.

In the case of the Macbooks vs Dell XPS ultrabooks you could argue that what makes people recognize a Macbook is as much the glowing white apple logo as the aluminum case so people are not being fooled when they see a Dell XPS into thinking it's a Macbook.

Similarly, people don't immediately assume that a sport car painted red is a Ferrari. But if they were to see a car with a Ferrari logo (regardless of its color) they would most certainly assume that it's a Ferrari.

In short, it's my understanding that trademarks are by definition somewhat subjective. However I believe that the intention is a good one, as it protects as much customers than brands.

hapless2• 12 years ago

It's called "trade dress." You absolutely are allowed, and this is probably a good thing.

In the case of a durable tool, like a multimeter, the industrial design serves the same purpose packaging does for normal consumer goods.

Let me turn the question around: "Should you really be allowed to trademark your packaging?"

Spooky232• 12 years ago

I think that a better example is Coke -- their bottle shape is a user-friendly design that is easy to hold onto, but more importantly it has become an iconic symbol of Coke the brand.

I think in the case of Apple, they iterate so often on basic laptop design that having trademarked trade dress around a laptop would be counter-productive. They always want their devices to be thinner and lighter, and that requires fundamental changes to the design (wedge shapes, unibody, etc)

With the Dell laptop, what really makes it look like Apple? It's silver and thin. There are literally dozens of vendors shipping thin, silver devices.

deletesystem32• 12 years ago

Good design adds and means nothing

Yeah… nah

davedx• 12 years ago

"Sucks"? It's a terrible waste of energy and resources for a frivolous reason.

RA_Fisher• 12 years ago

Who cares? If a yellow border is the innovation that Fluke has to offer, let them be imitated, IMO.

JonFish85• 12 years ago

I disagree. If Fluke is known by their color scheme, and they are known as a quality product, then they have a valuable reputation to protect. If a friend of mine gets the crappy $15 DMM that "looks just like" my $200 Fluke, then wonders why it isn't accurate, breaks after a couple of months, etc, then Fluke is the one who loses, not Sparkfun.

DanBC• 12 years ago

Except the non-Fluke devices don't have FLUKE across the front of the device, nor across the back of the yellow case.

Most people glancing at it are going to see a multimeter, not a fluke. They would look for some kind of Fluke branding, and a yellow bezel with grey front plate is not that, for signs of flukeness.

Especially in the red sparkfun card it is pretty clear that these are not fluke. I find it hard to understand that anyone would think this is a fluke device with even cursory inspection.

Edit: your google images link is interesting. It shows some fluke devices being in red, not yellow, cases / bezels.

Removing the word fluke from the search terms returns many devices that are either all yellow, or all grey, with a few other colours, and some that are grey in a yellow case. Many of the grey and yellow devices are not fluke devices.

It'd be interesting to see how many devices were using dark grey in yellow before 2000.

hapless2• 12 years ago

All of my older multimeters, from the 80s and 90s, were black or grey.

The yellow/grey contrast is a recent development, and it would surprise me very much if it weren't a deliberate attempt to knock off Fluke.

periferral• 12 years ago

You are joking. All multimeters I've worked with have been yellow. And all multimeters look like ... em... multimeters.

https://www.google.com/search?q=multimeter&safe=active&sourc...

caw• 12 years ago

The mark is for "contrasting yellow border". I can pick out the Fluke equipment easily from all those images.

It's not protecting the use of yellow, which is why the pure yellow devices exist.

watty• 12 years ago

There needs to be more to a patent than a primary color. Should car manufacturers be able to patent "black" cars? What happens when all primary colors have been patented?

lsaferite3• 12 years ago

In this case it's a TM, not a patent

darkarmani• 12 years ago

I see a red bordered fluke in that search. Does this mean they own both yellow and red+grey multimeters?

batbomb2• 12 years ago

I'm gonna play devil's advocate: That looks like a Fluke DMM knockoff. They could have easily gone with red, orange, green, or some other color I'm sure.

It would be nice if they got a warning first though.

Brashman• 12 years ago

Given that it's Sparkfun, red would have seemed to be the obvious choice.

mzs• 12 years ago

The HF ones are red though.

cynic_3• 12 years ago

http://www.pce-instruments.com/english/slot/2/artimg/large/f...

stronglikedan3• 12 years ago

To a moron in a hurry, it would look exactly like a Fluke product. This is exactly what trademarks are there to protect against, and Fluke is absolutely correct in their actions to protect their brand. This will likely blow up in Sparkfun's face, and rightly so.

cynic_3• 12 years ago

To a moron in a hurry every silver sedan looks exactly the same.

cynic_3• 12 years ago

Maybe if they went red or blue, some other company would come after them. The issue is trademarking a very generic color/look. How many manufactures can exist without "Your red looks too much like mine, I'm suing you"

cardinalfang• 12 years ago

Other manufacturers have their own colors. Orange would be an Agilent knock-off, red Amprobe, blue Metrix, green Gossen. Should you check to see if they have all copyrighted their color scheme - or only a market leader ?

eli2• 12 years ago

Trademarked, not copyrighted. And... maybe yes you should check to see if your product (coincidentally or not) happens to look an awful lot like the market leader?

batbomb2• 12 years ago

http://deep-com.ru/public/image/fluke_179.jpg

https://cdn.sparkfun.com/assets/home_page_posts/1/4/2/8/DMM_...

Red especially is used by many companies for DMMs, it's a safe color. There's also different hues you can use, maybe burgundy, or even stripes. My point is, this color yellow is similar to Fluke yellow, and that's without proper lighting or color calibration.

http://www.circuitspecialists.com/digital-multimeters

For example, this is a very popular budget meter, Circuit Specialists have been selling it for many years (I have one that's 7 years old):

http://www.circuitspecialists.com/csi2205d.html

zacinbusiness3• 12 years ago

That's pretty interesting to me because when I read the word "multimeters" in the title I instantly thought of a yellow device, even before I saw "contrasting yellow border." Fluke did a good job there and I think that in this case it's actually a pretty valid point.

Also - how long have Fluke been selling their yellow devices?

thu• 12 years ago

Or maybe actually you think of yellow devices because you saw plenty of non-Fluke yellow multimeters and now letting them appropriate the yellow color everyone associated to multimeters is unfair ?

I learned about Fluke making good multimeters probably about 17 years ago, in a student job. I'm pretty sure it was already yellow (and thus before they applied for the trademark).

mark-r3• 12 years ago

Remember they're not claiming the color yellow, they're claiming the contrast between the body and the border. An all yellow multimeter wouldn't be infringing.

zacinbusiness3• 12 years ago

Hmm a fair point. Honestly, I always assumed that yellow was sort of an industry standard for multimeters so that they would be easily recognizable say in darker spaces where electricians may not have great lighting.

gregpilling• 12 years ago

I sold Fluke meters from 1990-96. They were mostly dark grey with a yellow bumper, and the meter in this article looks like a Fluke. Interestingly, my 20 year old Fluke 73 (which still works great, second battery) is only grey with no yellow. I would have to think that within Sparkfun with its 100+ employees doing electronics that they had to know it looked like a Fluke.

They are expensive, but if you use a meter everyday you probably have one. Its a good tool. Mine has taken a lot of abuse.

bhousel3• 12 years ago

So we really only have two options, ship them back or have them destroyed. Having them destroyed costs $150 per hour with no indication of how much time it will take to destroy 2,000 units.

Aside: I can think of plenty of fun ways to quickly destroy 2000 cheap multimeters that would not cost $150/hour.

fnordfnordfnord• 12 years ago

The problem is that there is a government contractor near the port who can think of slow ways to do it.

jebus989• 12 years ago

In fairness without an idea of destruction time per unit, $150/hour gives no information on the cost of destroying the shipment.

dm2• 12 years ago

Why couldn't they just print up and ship out 2000 very cheap blue stickers which were intended to be put on the devices before being sold? Problem solved?

Also if they just reverse the color scheme then the trademark will not be violated and people will still associate yellow with high-quality devices.

deletes• 12 years ago

Here is one way: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvBOUy9E5Qw&feature=youtu.be&...

Don't watch if you are emotionally attached to pc hardware.

noonespecial• 12 years ago

They think they are actually going to be "destroyed"? Heh. Find out where the auction will be held. Go buy them back.

gohrt• 12 years ago

Black&Decker has a trademark on orange case/border.

larrys3• 12 years ago

"The USPTO website doesn’t like hard links"

For future reference, actually it does:

http://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=75934005&caseType=SERIAL_N...

noblethrasher• 12 years ago

Just as an object can have many references in typical programming languages, it is the case that an entity can have many different names in the “tradespace” and you don’t always get to decide what name consumers decide to use.

Let us take it as a given that within this particular tradespace, “contrasting yellow border” and “Fluke” just happen to be to references for the same thing, in this case a brand. But that also means that the brand can be damaged through either reference, so it’s incumbent upon the company that depends on that brand to guard those references to the brand.

yukichan• 12 years ago

What gets me is that the agent who inspected the packaging knew about this trademark. There must be a very large number of such trademarks and I doubt all the agents know all of them so for the agent who knew about this trademark to be the one who inspected the shipment seems like really bad luck.

Erwin• 12 years ago

When you ship something to another country you likely have to specify a very precise code for calculation of toll / tariff, see e.g.: http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/dds2/taric/measures.jsp...

Which is the category for Electronic Multimeter Without a Recording Device, NOT for use in an aircraft.

I could see a system that cross-references that code with known trademarks -- kind of a like a "Be on Lookout Of" but for design trademarks.

matt_heimer• 12 years ago

I doubt agents flip through recent filings, memorize a hand full and just get lucky. More likely Fluke or their lawyers have some way to provide alerts to US Customs.

josho• 12 years ago

As I read the article I wondered if the inspection was a result of a complaint on Fluke's part and as a result it was a case of justice by money and power?

More generally, I wonder how is it possible that inspectors are expected to deal with all the grey market goods that could be entering the border? Perhaps, a better example are children's toy jewellery which on numerous times have been found to have toxic levels of chemicals (eg. lead to levels high enough to send children into hospitals). Do the inspectors actually test for lead, or is their some sort of certification paper that is required?

What about those cheap electrical parts that you can buy (e.g. computer/iphone power adapters). I read a tear down report stating that these were unsafe because wiring not done to safety codes, so who is responsible for inspections before they enter the border?

The general case is complex, and I've never been able to read how the process is handled, so I assume given the quantity of products being imported they are often priced so cheap because they never go through the QA and safety standards that would be required if they were manufactured here. --Another example of pricing that doesn't factor in the total cost of the good, that is Chinese toys are cheaper than local because they aren't tested to our codes thereby avoiding whole cost structures that local companies incur resulting in cheaper products yet overall they are more expensive to society because 1% of buyers end up in the hospital and incurring those costs.

Spooky232• 12 years ago

They have a giant book: http://www.usitc.gov/tata/hts/

There is a really interesting NPR "Planet Money" podcast where they talk to customs folks about the import process. (They were tracing the supply chain for a t-shirt) Customs agents have lots of obscure knowledge about these things.

mark-r3• 12 years ago

If I'm reading the trademark properly, any contrasting color would be a violation no matter what the color is. Changing to red won't help.

This is totally overbroad. Unfortunately once something is approved by the PTO it's almost impossible to overturn.

rtkwe6• 12 years ago

You're reading it wrong, it's specifically the dark grey color and yellow border/case.

mark-r3• 12 years ago

How do you read "Color is not claimed as a feature of the mark." then? I admit IANAL.

coldcode• 12 years ago

I would agree that you can trademark an appearance but yellow is not any kind of identifiable color. This in my mind would make a trademark too vague to hold up in court. But my mind != stupid US government agency. I wonder if you can trademark objects with colors outside human vision. "I'm sorry sir your multimeters glow in the ultraviolet and we own that trademark."

It is also unreasonable that there is no option once seized to have it ship to a country other than the origin. After all it may very well be legal in Canada or Poland or somewhere.

chc5• 12 years ago

It isn't yellow. It's the two contrasting colors. A yellow device would be fine.

mxfh2• 12 years ago

Just wondering when The National Geographic Society will step in. Why should they limit themself to press products only.

[EDIT] They have at least two generic trademarks, one with matching class.

Class 9 (including electric, measuring): http://trademarks.justia.com/852/58/n-a-85258337.html

Class 16: http://trademarks.justia.com/850/51/n-a-85051489.html

For comparison the less generic Class 9 entry of Fluke: http://trademarks.justia.com/860/76/n-86076075.html & http://trademarks.justia.com/860/76/n-86076086.html

Curmudgel• 12 years ago

Well, because trademarks are limited to separate classes.

http://trademarkbureau.com/trademark_classes.php

mxfh2• 12 years ago

I'm aware of that, also I'm not that serious about it.

It doesn't seem to stop National Geographic from licensing their logo to optical instrument manufacturer Bresser.

Yellow border on electronic hardware: http://www.bresser.de/publications/national_geo_kat_de_en/HT...

[EDIT] There are some

Class 9 (including electric): http://trademarks.justia.com/852/58/n-a-85258337.html

Class 16: http://trademarks.justia.com/850/51/n-a-85051489.html

jes• 12 years ago

"If you drop a meter and it still works, it's a Fluke."

darkr• 12 years ago

Whereas you drop a meter and it costs the same as a sandwich to replace, it's a ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

rtkwe6• 12 years ago

Small business does not have the resources to stay abreast of all trademarks for all the products they don’t carry.

I agree that this sucks for Sparkfun, but at some point someone had to think these look a lot like Flukes' multimeters. If you ever find yourself thinking 'this product I'm about to import looks a LOT like $major_market_player's product' then take a second to look up their trademarks. You don't have to stay up to date on every trademark but at least do a cursory search before a big commitment..

null_ptr• 12 years ago

"Between bad and worse, we have to have them destroyed. Sorry Earth."

Sorry Earth indeed. Shit like this probably happens every minute of the day, and it probably cancels out everyone's cumulative efforts towards a more sustainable society. Destroying working products is a gratuitous waste that should be illegal, and that illegality should supersede any trademark law violation.

Why not order SparkFun to spray paint them black within a number of days instead?

bronson4• 12 years ago

How much would that cost?? It isn't like you can hire your nephew to do it for $7/hr.

It's seriously difficult to get paint to stick to plastic. When the paint starts peeling, that sounds like a heck of a liability issue.

happyscrappy• 12 years ago

It could have been intentional but it was probably just a fluke.

cushychicken• 12 years ago

Everyone is viewing this as a cloud, but I think, in spite of the costs and legal headaches, Sparkfun has a great opportunity for a silver lining lying right in front of them.

Call it "The Sparkfun Multimeter Casing Challenge". Mention their existing industrial design issues. Call on their users (more than a few of which have a 3D printing background) to design a multimeter housing that's unique, and reflects their brand. If they could wangle it, they could even yank out their DMM circuitry from the import-restricted DMMs and send the guts to the contest entrants to make working prototypes.

That would be a great way to get design done for free by people excited about the Sparkfun brand.

skittles• 12 years ago

Seems like switching from yellow to red still leaves them open to law suite. They'll be less likely to lose the suite, but I don't think the court will throw it out based upon the trademark wording. Just make it black.

sharemywin2• 12 years ago

if the filing doesn't it say no color associated with mark? Couldn't you file a cease and desist on the customs office?

sharemywin2• 12 years ago

you also have to defend your trademark. if there are plenty of examples that violate it it's not a trademark.

Glyptodon2• 12 years ago

Why can't they just paint them another color instead of destroying them? Is it too expensive or are the rules too stupid?

gnaffle3• 12 years ago

Where would you find someone to unpack, paint and repack them for less than $15 a piece?

Glyptodon2• 12 years ago

I'm sure it'd be less than $15 dollars a piece. Hire someone to unpack them at $8/hr, someone to paint them at $8/hr, and someone to bag them at $8/hr, and I'd bet you could go through 30+ an hour, which would come out to $0.80/pop for labor. Plus transport and paint. Sure, it costs them, but keep in mind they don't have to make profit, they just have to make back more than the cost of a total loss for it to be worth it. Selling every single one for a few dollars loss should be better than losing them all for a more $$$ loss...

logfromblammo• 12 years ago

Colors in trademarks are tricky. I would argue that the colors of a tool or measurement device serve a functional purpose, namely visibility and outline recognition in low-light conditions, so if I were judging this trademark, I'd ask a few questions:

- Is the yellow used by the competitor distinguishable by the human eye from the yellow used by Fluke?

- Is the yellow used by Fluke distinct from colors commonly used on similar items to improve visibility, or a color not commonly available in the source materials for similar products?

If Fluke buys off-the-shelf plastic pellets, with the same colors used by everyone who makes colored plastic things, they can hardly complain when natural, functional choices in product design replicate their claimed color mark.

If they claimed a very specific, non-standard yellow, like rgb(197,247,45), and a specific contrast color, like rgb(0,53,117), I'd defend it in a heartbeat. But let's be honest. If you sell plastic pellets in bulk, and you could only stock 6 colors, they would be transparent, white, black, cyan, magenta, and yellow. At minimum, the customer could melt and mix a specific color within a reasonable gamut. Claiming 2 of those primary pigment colors as trademarked so no one else could use them without significant additional expense is a bit ridiculous.

But the wheels of justice have many irregularly shaped cams and cogs, so my common sense approach almost certainly would not have merit in any actual courtroom.

forgotAgain• 12 years ago

Anyone who has ever worked in an electronics lab knows that the yellow handheld sitting at the edge of the bench is a multimeter and it's from Fluke.

stronglikedan3• 12 years ago

It's not just the fact that it's yellow, but it's also shaped just like a Fluke. A quick search on multimeters shows various alternative shapes that Sparkfun could have chosen to distinguish themselves. Fluke is correct in protecting their brand, in this case.

yitchelle• 12 years ago

This is trademark gone stupid. Will they trademark that fact the probes inserts are located at the bottom of the device and the display is on the top?

Sparkfun could just "silently" donate those multimeters to the local tech college.

stronglikedan3• 12 years ago

It's yellow and shaped just like a Fluke. Sparkfun is in the wrong here. Fluke must protect their brand to keep their trademark valid.

jggonz2• 12 years ago

Yes, but their brand is getting a hell of a beating because of this right now. I own Fluke and now I'm thinking of switching because of their stupidity. People that buy a Fluke product buy it not only because it's yellow, but because they have a good reputation as the workhorse multi-meter.

I agree that they should protect their trademark, but destroying the product is not the way to go. They could allow SparkFun to donate the multimeters.

jggonz2• 12 years ago

First result on an Amazon search for "digital multimeter" is this: http://www.amazon.com/Digital-VOLT-Meter-Voltmeter-Multimete...

An $8.00 multimeter (including shipping) with a black body and yellow border.

I grew up using Fluke multimeters for electronic experimentations since my father loved them, but I'm really not liking Fluke right now. I think I'll switch over to another multimeter brand unless they work something out with SparkFun before this batch is destroyed.

hmottestad• 12 years ago

From what I remember from a previous case like this you could do a consumer survey and show that no one thinks that yellow multimeters are made by Fluke. It was something along the lines of protecting a trademark, and a trademark stops being a trademark if it gets too diluted.

For instance, show the MCD golden arcs to consumers that eat a lot of western fast food and they will all say, MCD. So get a bunch of electrical people who have worked with a number of multimeters and ask them what brand a yellow multimeter is :D

jff3• 12 years ago

And if you show a bunch of electrical engineers a multimeter with a grey face and a yellow border, they'll tell you it's a Fluke. Sparkfun will lose that survey, because their knockoff multimeters appear to be designed specifically to look like Flukes.

Fluke multimeters really are the best I've ever used. Similarly, Weller soldering stations are the best I've used, and I'd expect them to protect their signature blue case/black front design.

GregBuchholz• 12 years ago

Similarly, Weller soldering stations are the best I've used,

Be sure to try a Metcal some day.

http://www.okinternational.com/metcal/english/globalnavigati...

...we have one at work and it is better than the Weller I have at home.

bananas8• 12 years ago

I'm probably going to get kicked in the face for this one but sparkfun are stepping beyond the realms of sensibility here and are turning this into a war with random internet people who get offended easily to draw attention to Fluke and away from themselves and a really crappy purchasing and import decision.

I'm well on Fluke's side here as a an actual qualified electrical engineer. I trust Fluke's products and have done for over 20 years.

Multimeters are more than just budget devices to measure voltages, amperages and resistance. They sit between you and part of a circuit that might well kill you through electrocution or explosions. All it takes is a miswired socket, earth fault or short in a power supply and you've got 110-240v going up your arm and you're dead. Either that or the meter explodes, removing your fingers or spraying bits of plastic and metal into your eyes.

Yes it's that graphic.

To present that piece of junk as high quality device for $15 is totally wrong to start with. Even without reviewing it, it's not possible to purchase the isolation circuitry for that price from a Chinese component manufacturer.

Sparkfun is purely aimed at amateurs as expected but to go on this witch hunt is wrong.

Fluke are worried people will assume that these will be associated with their brand and rightfully so want that association removed. And obviously, on that basis, they're being destroyed so someone agrees.

I wouldn't touch one of those meters with a 20 foot long rubber pole and I wouldn't want them on the shelf next to a proper meter.

SparkFun are wrong as are probably most of the people cheering for the demise of Fluke here.

swalsh• 12 years ago

This is exactly what a trademark is intended for. If I started a home goods store called "Home Hut", and made the logo a large orange square... i'd also be infringing, and for good reason. Home depot has built a reputation, and that trade mark orange is representative of that reputation.

lsaferite3• 12 years ago

And if I start a home improvement store using a tomatoish orange and call it "Bob's Home Store" would that also fall afoul of trademark in your book?

In the case of the DMM in question, it's not direct knock-off of a Fluke and according to SF the color is more of an orange-yellow than the Fluke safety yellow. SF's whole point is that the TM terms are too vague. Gray with a yellow border. What shade of gray? What shade of yellow? I don't get to claim a whole primary color and say you can make a DMM using any color even close to this.

evan_• 12 years ago

It's a low cost device for hobbyists who want to test their arduinos. The fact that it can't be used with a 240v source is irrelevant. If its safety limits are improperly marked, then you have a valid criticism.

You sound like you really just have a problem with electronics hobbyist amateurs who deign to intrude on your actual qualified electrical engineer grandeur. Get over it.

bananas8• 12 years ago

Not at all. Watch someone get electrocuted through shitty test equipment or a poor earth and you'll get the idea.

Doesn't matter if it's an Arduino connected to a PC with an earth fault or a $30000 scope.

People just don't GET electrical safety and it's a really big problem.

It's nothing to do with grandeur - it's understanding the whole problem.

jpwright2• 12 years ago

That has nothing to do with the trademark issue at hand, and no one is cheering for the demise of Fluke (the post is actually very complimentary of Fluke products).

For people working with 5V circuits (e.g. Arduinos), you don't need to worry about AC power killing you or your multimeter exploding. A cheap multimeter is OK in a pinch.

bananas8• 12 years ago

Until you connect your Arduino's USB cable to your computer which is on a faulty earth and then realise that you have 100-240v going through your mains, to your computer case, up your USB cable, through your meter, up your arm, across your chest, down your desk leg and back to earth...

The potential difference between the 5v and GND on your Ardunio might be 5v but between your Arduino GND and real earth might be 180v floating.

Believe me that shit is scary and will kill you.

I'd rather people blew $250 on a meter and actually read up on electrical safety to be honest. If that's prohibitive, you're welcome to kill yourself through ignorance.

hamiltonkibbe5• 12 years ago

I think it's fairly likely that someone who is using this multimeter while working with e.g. Arduinos, would be the type of person who, when some piece of electronic equipment in their home isn't working, would say "I have this multimeter, let me check and see if there's voltage on the outlet"

solve5• 12 years ago

Blind brand loyalty isn't always a good thing, especially over the span of 20+ years where you stop even testing the alternatives. Technology advances FAST. You say nothing about having actually evaluated the cheaper alternatives in person? Are you sure that despite exponential increases in technology that prices haven't come down at all?

Are you sure about the true production costs, if you eliminate the 20 layers of middlemen and are only paying the 10cents / hour miners + 20cents / hour workers? This is a finance / markets question, not an engineering question.

Lots of strong emotions, not so sure about the evidence. Technology and cost of technology never stops advancing. Numerous large companies are guilty of price-fixing, e.g. the large-scale monitor price-fixing scandals from a few years ago. Bet you never even heard of those cases?

sliverstorm4• 12 years ago

Parts sourcing is part of engineering. He is right, well designed high voltage protection is not going to be cheap, and these meters are obviously not designed with anything but digital testbench in mind.

jff3• 12 years ago

Go buy some Chinese-brand tires from Walmart. I'm sure they're just cheaper because they cut out the middlemen and aren't selling a name. They certainly won't blow out after 8000 miles.

rayiner6• 12 years ago

Analog technology evolves very slowly relative to what you're thinking of.

sliverstorm4• 12 years ago

On the bright side, the people reading sparkfun and getting pissed at fluke, probably never would have bought a fluke anyway, so no tremendous loss here. The market for $15 meters and fluke meters doesn't overlap much. It's been a while since I shopped DMMs, but isn't their entry-level meter ~$250?

jff3• 12 years ago

Hell, even the guy who wrote the original article isn't in Fluke's target market apparently: "I’ve never had the opportunity to own a Fluke-branded DMM"

mindslight3• 12 years ago

So, since the design[1] and construction of a multimeter is important (I wholeheartedly agree), do you simply look for ones that have a yellow border with a dark face, and trust that this implies they're well made? Or might you look for the actual trademark 'FLUKE', and even buy from a reputable distributor to avoid outright counterfeits?

Personally I'm not a Fluke junkie, and think there's plenty of reputable mid-range meters that will protect you just fine. However I also think that a distributor-branded direct-import is not likely to be one of these.

But as far as trademarks, we're really talking about two quite functional colors here - a neutral-colored face for readability, and a bright shroud on the other sides for visibility. Many meters have been using these color styles for quite some time and, as your loyalty to Fluke illustrates, this does little to dilute their brand.

[1] Electronic design, as would be implied by the context if not for confusion induced by graphic/industrial designers thinking they have a monopoly on the term.

fancyketchup• 12 years ago

I'm not a Fluke junkie either, but I don't buy the "functional colors" argument. Nobody made a multimeter that looked like that until Fluke started doing it. Fluke also makes a range of "intrinsically safe" multimeters with a red instead of orange border. Are those less "functional?" They are certainly less well-known, so it wouldn't make sense to copy them.

It's the same as the cheapo "bench" multimeters that have five input terminals and the same layout as an Agilent 344xxA (or Fluke 88xx) but don't have a 4-wire Ohms function (or even a low-enough range to need 4-wire Ohms) or a proper guard connection (which is the purpose of the the 5th terminal).

Fuxy5• 12 years ago

How can you approve any company just patenting a multimeter with a gray front and a yellow back.

Get real that is very common color scheme for multimeters and it is an unrealistic expectation of Fluke that everybody associates that to their products only.

Case and point how many gray and yellow multimeters can you see here [1]?

[1] www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=multimeters

bananas8• 12 years ago

This is only because of the brand success of Fluke and they want to be associated with it. But it's a dangerous bridge to cross.

hamiltonkibbe5• 12 years ago

In this case the entire design (color, shape, etc) is nearly identical to my Fluke meter. I'm sure they're not going after every yellow and gray meter on the market. These are clearly designed to look just like a Fluke meter

chc5• 12 years ago

They didn't patent a multimeter with a gray front and yellow back. I don't think that is even patentable. You should really study the relevant facts of an issue well before forming such strong feelings about it.

makomk5• 12 years ago

Basically, there's a kind of romanticisation of Fluke multimeters in the electrical and electronics community as the only decent multimeter and their appearance as incredibly distinctive. This supposed distinctive appearance never seems to have existed - Flukes from any given era look far more similar to all the other multimeters and electronics from that era than to newer or older Flukes - but people believe it anyway, most likely because they rarely come across other multimeters.

michaelt2• 12 years ago

  All it takes is a miswired socket, earth fault or short
  in a power supply and you've got 110-240v going up your
  arm and you're dead. Either that or the meter explodes,
  removing your fingers or spraying bits of plastic and
  metal into your eyes.

If these are a serious danger I think people should be better informed. I'd like to make a youtube video demonstrating the problem. I have a £15 multimeter [1] and 240v residential mains electricity. How would I go about demonstrating the problem?

[1] http://www.toolstation.com/shop/Hand+Tools/Electricians+Tool...

hamiltonkibbe5• 12 years ago

Plug a cheap, transformerless, USB charger into a socket that's wired backwards, and touch the shield of the connector by accident when plugging it into your cell phone

forgottenpaswrd• 12 years ago

"All it takes is a miswired socket, earth fault or short in a power supply and you've got 110-240v going up your arm and you're dead. "

It seems to me that you are not a qualified electrical engineer. Those three words are incompatible with the above statement.

Probably you are engineer, when I come from in Europe this title means something serious, but in other countries means very little.

But qualified you are not.

I AM electrical engineer and you don't know what you are talking about.

In my country we say that it is easier to catch a liar than a gammy person.

bhousel3• 12 years ago

I'm curious what you think about his statement was wrong. Don't dumb it down, I'm an electrical engineer too :)

Deaths do happen at low voltage. They aren't very common, but they are possible, and faulty test equipment is a serious problem: http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/98-131/pdfs/98-131.pdf

mr_spothawk• 12 years ago

When i lived in China i found a "Fruke" brand multimeter in the weird back room of a large grocery store where i was shopping. I almost bought the meter for posterity. It looked just like a Fluke... in that it was yellow and grey. #truestory

maxmax• 12 years ago

Nick is misrepresenting himself somewhat. The letter from Customs mentions 250 units, not 2000. Also, his $30K "loss" is a gross sales loss ($15 retail price * 2000), not Sparkfun's actual loss, which I'd imagine is substantially less.

gnaffle3• 12 years ago

Maybe he has an order in for 2000 units? In any case, they should have ordered them in Sparkfun Red while they were at it.

pessimizer• 12 years ago

This story upset me for a moment. My first thought was "a ton of multimeters look like that." After doing google image search for a moment, I realized that all of the multimeters that I've used that looked like that have been Flukes or Chinese/Korean knockoffs of Flukes.

There's no reason to make the case yellow and the face grey other than to trade on an existing reputation for quality that Fluke has established. That's exactly why there are trademarks. Pick a different color: I suggest hot pink, or 2-tone checkerboard because I would buy that.

devicenull• 12 years ago

Everyone seems to be directing their hate at Fluke, which was not at all related in this. People seem to believe that Fluke sued/did something to cause this specific shipment to be seized, when this doesn't seem to be the case.

They applied for a trademark on this, and got it. Now CBP is enforcing the trademark. CBP certainly doesn't ask Fluke before seizing a shipment. The issue here should be the trademark process, not Fluke.

imperialdrive• 12 years ago

lol, you peons worried about a yellow border... let Fluke have it if they want, move on...

wbix• 12 years ago

The real problem is that Fluke is trademarking yellow. That is just not supposed to possible.

Fluke owns trademark on multimeters with "contrasting yellow border"

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