SparkFun: We Hear You

https://www.facebook.com/notes/fluke-corporation/sparkfun-we-hear-you/10151978262765592

by surge • 12 years ago

257 126 12 years ago

seszett• 12 years ago

It's a bit of a shame that Fluke uses Facebook for publishing official statements.

Other than that... well, good reaction from Fluke. I'd say all events, from seizing the multimeters to the resolution today, unfolded in the best way possible.

lrem• 12 years ago

Apart from the part where the law turned out to be so broken to make it happen...

mindcrime• 12 years ago

Indeed. But given that the law is what it is, this is a fairly good response from Fluke. More than I expected, TBH.

bfrog• 12 years ago

Its not broken if you consider it protecting the companies of the united states from knock offs. That company that made those multimeters had the full rainbow of colors and an infinite choice of shapes, dials, displays to choose from. They basically decided fluke was great, copied almost everything, sold it cheaper.

If it were your product, which was a high quality product, and some cheap knock offs came in with basically everything the same but the label... you would not be happy.

haptiK• 12 years ago

Explain to me why it's a shame to have used Facebook?

mixologic• 12 years ago

Facebook isn't the web. Its a siloed private service. A company the size and reputation of Fluke should have their very own website that they can put messages like that on. Otherwise, they're merely giving facebook revenue by having that many more pageview opportunities to show everybody ads.

talklittle• 12 years ago

I thought it was a shame for a different reason. Given I'm far from an avid Facebook user these days, the UI led me to believe this whole thing was a statement being made by Facebook, until I got to the very end of the letter: "Signed, Fluke Corporation."

Was very confused about Facebook talking so much about hardware.

facepalm• 12 years ago

For me it's a shame because I have blocked Facebook, so I can't see it. But isn't it always "Login-Walled", in that you can only see stuff as a registered Facebook user?

ubercore• 12 years ago

This is a great response, as far as I'm concerned. I especially appreciate them explaining why this issue could be more than just "trademark gone awry".

skeletonjelly• 12 years ago

Had to look it up myself.

Context: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7428799

johansch4• 12 years ago

So the end result is still an enviromentally unfriendly destruction of 2000 perfectly fine multimeters. Just because they are yellow.

toomuchtodo• 12 years ago

Baby steps. You can't expect massive changes overnight in such a complex system. Fluke did a solid AND the trademark system is broken; both are news.

johansch4• 12 years ago

A nicer solution could have been:

Fluke: "We'll swap your 2000 chinese multimeters with 2000 Fluke multimeters. We will send the non-fluke multimeters to under-funded universities in africa/asia/wherever."

bronson2• 12 years ago

An oversimplified answer to an oversimplified question: yes.

sparky• 12 years ago

They need not be destroyed[1] :

  Goods that are seized and forfeited as bearing a mark
  that is a counterfeit of a registered trademark, piratical
  of a registered copyright or imported in violation of
  distribution rights agreements are routinely destroyed,
  unless the owner of the trademark/copyright gives
  permission for other disposition, such as charitable
  donations.

Fluke seems like they might be cool with that.

[1] https://help.cbp.gov/app/answers/detail/a_id/105/kw/what%20h...

aortega• 12 years ago

The truth is, Sparky the dumb technician may think that because they are yellow and very similar, the multimeters have 50000V isolation like the flukes.

If you pardon the pun, he's having a shocking suprise, if he survives.

thaumaturgy2• 12 years ago

Wow, what an amazing and generous response from Fluke. I can't remember a better response from a company, ever, in a trademark / patent / copyright / licensing dispute.

And it's all written in straightforward language without a lot of marketingese.

fnordfnordfnord2• 12 years ago

Jack Daniels does it with class too. http://brokenpianoforpresident.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/j...

poulsbohemian• 12 years ago

Thanks for sharing that - I have a new respect for Jack Daniels after seeing how respectfully they handled that. A model of how these types of issues should be worked out.

RankingMember• 12 years ago

Wow, now that's something you rarely see in legal correspondence: respectful, even-keeled explanation over "I'm going to hit you with this tersely-worded hammer if you don't comply" legalese.

IgorPartola• 12 years ago

That's fantastic. I bet you this cost everyone less money then litigation. The only way they could have made this better is if they sent the author a bottle too.

I have come to believe that there are contracts and there are intentions behind the contracts. A person or a company can sign a contract, and have no plans to fulfill it and at the same time a person or a company can fulfill a promise without signing any contract. While contracts are a necessary evil, the real question is what does the other party intend to do.

larrys• 12 years ago

"what an amazing and generous response from Fluke"

Agree. And curious what the PR value will be vs. the cost of goods for Fluke (which is their cost, not the wholesale and/or selling price).

Personally I think it's unfortunate that they needed, in this day and age of social media, to have to bogu on this situation and get out in front of this issue by doing this. Of course by what I say in the first paragaph it may very well not be a bogu at all but end up being a rather smart move to gain business in the maker community.

I've been observing business for a longer time than most people on HN have been around. I have to say I've never ever seen anything like this happen.

asimpletune• 12 years ago

I doubt they're getting any serious PR from this. I've been to Fluke HQ. They're a pretty small company, full of incredibly nice people.

fnordfnordfnord2• 12 years ago

I was really surprised and impressed not only with their response, but also with how quickly they responded.

I've already spent a few thousand dollars on Fluke equipment this year, and could imagine spending a few thousand more before the year is up. I'm a small customer. It wouldn't take many like me to make up for ~30k worth of stuff.

mongrol• 12 years ago

The maker community is important. It does fluke no favours to piss them off. Nice to see a switched on company.

jacquesm2• 12 years ago

I'm on the fence about how generous this is. Fluke was obviously headed for some bad PR, they were allowed to get a 'trade dress' protection for their not-so-distinctive design (I've seen yellow multimeters from long before I ever used a fluke, yellow is simply a good colour for a tool because it makes it stand out).

Carlo Gavazzi (another manufacturer of measure and test gear) had a series of yellow meters with black backs (the reverse of the Fluke scheme), and other brands have had instances of meters with exactly the same scheme as Fluke uses today (Fluke originally did not use colour at all for their equipment).

The end result of all this is that a bunch of good, working equipment is going to end up destroyed, SparkFun will have to decide to continue their campaign in light of this PR move by Fluke and SparkFun's customers still lose. On top of that SparkFun's brand will be damaged and at least 2000 of their customers have a negative experience with them.

This is not about money, this is about a bunch of people being denied access to the tools they had already bought and no amount of PR is going to fix that short of those people being send a replacement (maybe with another colour, how many distinctively coloured multimeter brands could co-exist anyway?).

If they had been stamped 'Fluke' that would be another story entirely, but this is as far as I'm concerned just pushing for brand protection because the law allows for it.

As for the safety angle, that's a red herring, nobody in their right mind is going to assume the isolation class of a piece of equipment based on the color of the casing.

jweather• 12 years ago

The only customer involved is Sparkfun, they were purchasing the meters for their own stock. Nobody had pre-ordered them. Not sure what SparkFun campaign you're talking about.

pepon• 12 years ago

Amazing?? Generous??

Still prohibited selling yellow multimeters?? Is that a joke??

I think there are many Fluke PR employees posting messages telling what a great company Fluke is for this response... IMHO, this patent is just ridiculous.

51Cards• 12 years ago

This isn't a Patent, it's a Trademark.

vertex-four• 12 years ago

Not yellow multimeters. Multimeters with a dark coloured face, with a yellow border around the face.

joezydeco2• 12 years ago

How many products have you designed and shipped? If that number is non-zero, have you had a problem with cheap offshore reproductions messing with your business?

mindslight6• 12 years ago

So then, nothing to be done about the needless destruction of the shipment of meters by customs? As Sparkfun said, Fluke could easily issue a temporary license to prevent that draconian waste.

If they think those meters are actually going to dilute their brand (hint: they really aren't), then make the importation license require Sparkfun to rework the meters domestically before distributing them.

vailripper• 12 years ago

Why wouldn't they dilute their brand? They've built up a reputation of building a high end product. If someone begins selling a product that looks nearly identical to their own, that's of inferior quality, how does that not affect their own reputation?

mindslight6• 12 years ago

Because professional engineers choose test equipment based on functionality, and color schemes fall pretty low on the list. (yeah, this may be hard to believe if you have a primarily software background)

cjensen• 12 years ago

As Fluke said, they want customers to know that if a product appears to be a Fluke, then they can safely use it in a high-voltage environment. The implication is that no, they are not going to permit them to enter the US.

It's very classy of them to make Sparkfun whole.

mindslight6• 12 years ago

As I said, Sparkfun could rework them domestically to change their appearance, avoiding destruction and avoiding sending them back to China.

Also, does anyone have tips on how to get the smell out after accidentally using an overripe banana to "test" my breaker panel? I thought checking the color would be sufficiently safe :/

MichaelGG• 12 years ago

The safety argument is a bit weak. There's nothing stopping anyone at Fluke from shipping poorly performing devices with Fluke branding. This happened for instance with Pyrex, when they changed the glass so it wasn't as strong. Anyone counting on the Pyrex to not explode under certain conditions was in for a nasty surprise.

The argument about trademark needs to stand on its own, without the argument that the current owners of a trademark are going some safety critical job.

bronson2• 12 years ago

Just when I thought I couldn't love Fluke any more. Impressive products, impressive company.

I'm going to be reloading the "Fluke" search on Sparkfun until something shows up in the products section...

imroot• 12 years ago

I'm impressed that Fluke took these steps to go above and beyond what I expected them to do in this situation. This was written in a very neutral tone without marketing spin.

stevenkovar• 12 years ago

It would be interesting to see SparkFun introduce their products with their own red color to brand hobbyist equipment as its own segment—compliment Fluke's reliance on color to connote the primary qualities of the brand.

Red = accessible, versatile hobbyist equipment Yellow = rugged, reliable industrial equipment

Great response from Fluke nonetheless.

pmorici3• 12 years ago

Well Fluke sells meters with a red color scheme too so...

http://www.fluke.com/fluke/tten/Digital-Multimeters/Specialt...

sitkack• 12 years ago

Let this be a lesson on damage control. If you can do something like this, you should. They have nipped a kerfuffle in the bud.

AjithAntony• 12 years ago

Ooh, Maybe we'll get a chance to buy a Fluke from Sparkfun for $15 (or less)

DannyBee• 12 years ago

One slight error.

Fluke says: "It’s important to know that once we’ve filed for and received trademark protection, US Customs has the responsibility to determine what to stop at the border, or what to seize. In this case, we first learned of this issue from SparkFun’s blog."

This is only kinda correct. It's theoretically true. However, these particular items were stopped due to an ITC order, that resulted from action taken by Fluke (though not deliberately against sparkfun).

See http://www.usitc.gov/publications/337/pub4210.pdf

This is US ITC exclusion order 337-TA-588, which is referenced in the letter customs sent to sparkfun. This was another case where they complained about the color of some multimeters. Had this action not been taken, there is a zero percent chance customs would have done anything to sparkfun.

Sadly, it's not possible to tell what the items in this order looked like for sure , because although there are "full color photographs" attached as exhibits, for some reason they scanned it in black and white ;)

(The last part of the statement, about them not knowing, is almost certainly true)

nickbauman• 12 years ago

Instead of destroying them, why not paint them so as not to waste them?

astrodust• 12 years ago

Should really send them back and get a new housing made.

pmorici3• 12 years ago

It's kind of silly that you can trademark a color like that. Maybe Sparkfun should have Fluke's red meters stopped at the border because they are red, the color associated with the Sparkfun brand. It probably doesn't make business sense for them to do that though.

http://www.fluke.com/fluke/tten/Digital-Multimeters/Specialt...

Fluke's entry level meter is $130 on Amazon maybe they should make a less expensive model for Sparkfun to sell to the makers.

olefoo• 12 years ago

It's not a patent.

It is a trademark, or trade dress registration.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_dress

If you make agricultural equipment and paint it a bright green and yellow; John Deere will come after you because at least some people might get the impression that you are at the least trying to take advantage of their reputation.

pmorici3• 12 years ago

That's my point, Sparkfun's trademark is red packaging and PCB's. Fluke makes a red meter Spark fun should ask them to stop selling that meter because people might confuse it with a Sparkfun product.

forgotAgain• 12 years ago

Good products and a good PR department as well. Most companies don't have either.

aray• 12 years ago

Given that Fluke multimeters cost about 10x what the destroyed ones are, sparkfun is still out $30k to replace the shipment + destruction fees, and now have probably 200 fluke units to try to recoup some costs with.

georgemcbay2• 12 years ago

While this is true, Fluke's response could have easily been "eat a bag of dicks, Sparkfun" and their actual response is quite a bit more friendly than that.

I think there is still blame to go around here but more on US Customs than Fluke, particularly since the Sparkfun multimeter color isn't really that close to the "Fluke yellow". It would be nice if there were some simple (via some arbiter, not the slow legal system) ability to appeal such decisions prior to exportation or destruction of all the stock.

vacri2• 12 years ago

The yellows look pretty similar

fluke multimeter: http://www.rigoloscilloscope.com.au/upload/pro/2010111106244...

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

davesque2• 12 years ago

Am I the only one that is finding their response to be unsatisfactory?

Let me translate it for everyone:

"Hey, we realize how much it sucks that your merchandise was seized and will now be destroyed. As far as that goes, well...too bad. _However_, we'll allow you just this once to distribute our own merchandise and spread awareness of our brand name for us."

Is this really a fair deal? Does SparkFun really want to be under Fluke's thumb and promote Fluke's brand at the expense of promoting their own?

In addition to that, they still have a monopoly on the color yellow in their market.

How is this an admirable move by Fluke?

jessaustin• 12 years ago

"Admirable" in a very narrow sense, perhaps: they've snowed both Sparkfun and the general public, and have strengthened a dubious trademark to boot.

rch• 12 years ago

Agreed. There's nothing wrong with a company wanting to run damage control in this situation, but the level of praise here seems out of sync.

tripzilch• 12 years ago

I'd call it "clever", but not "admirable".

eyeareque• 12 years ago

Can't they just make a (maybe 3d printed) stencil, and then spray paint the devices a different color? Sure, it could rightfully add 3-4 dollars of cost to each device, but it makes more sense than just destroying them.

damian2000• 12 years ago

If SparkFun had decided to drop ship those same multimeters to their end-customers directly out of China (or wherever they are sourced from), via mail, would customs have seized each individual multimeter? I think not.

bananas• 12 years ago

Actually I've had stuff imported from HK that was seized at EU border as in single items. It does happen. In this case a single rip off Rotring 600 clone from AliExpress.

quarterwave• 12 years ago

Imagine how much money would have been spent if this had to go to court to achieve the same result: we'll let you go this time, but in future please pay more attention to product design/appearance.

TerraHertz• 12 years ago

Superficially it may seem like a generous response from Fluke. But you can bet that if there wasn't such a backlash against their action of lodging a complaint with US Customs, they would not have done this. Also I think they were already suffering serious commercial and image harm, which they realized would only get worse.

So really, it's self-preservation, not generosity.

Generosity would be to accept that 'yellow body, dark face' is not something they should try to own, or be able to own. If they cancel their ridiculous Mark registration, then I might believe Fluke had developed an actual soul, instead of mere corporate image loss/benefit calculation.

davesque2• 12 years ago

Yep, exactly. Furthermore, SparkFun gets dubious "privilege" of being a Fluke distributor for a day.

"Don't worry SparkFun. We'll let you give out some of _our_ product as compensation. Oh, that doesn't really help _your_ business in the long run? Jeeze, sorry I guess..."

I'm a little disappointed in the Hacker News crowd on this one. It doesn't seem like anyone's thinking this through.

alexjv89• 12 years ago

Wow ...

kubiiii• 12 years ago

Metrix multimeter usually are blue. I can think of at least another quality multimeter brand that use the yellow/dark grey. What if red was not even an option to make cheap multimeter and if all the colors were covered by patents?

smoyer• 12 years ago

You really have to wonder why a vendor of "precision test equipment" would want to protect a trademark of the word "fluke"[1]. Wouldn't you rather your measurements were "consistent"?

[1] http://www.thefreedictionary.com/fluke - definition #3

gvb• 12 years ago

The company name wasn't a fluke, John Fluke named it after himself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluke_Corporation

urza• 12 years ago

This is ridiculous. How can you trademark yellow color? America is crazy.

All these patents, copyrights, trademarks and other form of memes monopolization are only slowing down cultural evolution to the disadvantage for all of us. The cultural evolution work similarly as biological. If yellow color is good for users, let is spread. Then some company will most likely add small tweak that will turn into yet another benefit and better product. The society benefits. Whereas in current system only one company benefits. That is wrong because patents etc were made to benefit the society, not some greedy companies.

SparkFun: We Hear You

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