Neumann Disk Mastering products

[Phinster]

Since Sennheiser abandoned any interest in the lathe side of Neumann's business, does it mean that it's effectively now in the public domain?

Most of the people who worked in the disk cutting side are no longer around. Are we free to 'reverse engineer' the designs if we so desire?

Thoughts?

[SueDenim]

I'm guessing that there will still be patents for all the Neumann designs and that they will still be owned by someone, probably Sennheiser.
If so, they'd be within their rights to take legal action against anyone who developed a product which was reverse engineered from those designs.

Whether they could be bothered with the time and expense of doing so is another matter!
It would need to be tested in court... feeling lucky?!

[Phinster]

best not tell them then...

[Aussie0zborn]

Patents usually have a time limit. Look at the CD Digipak, developed by AGI, USA. As soon as the ten years were up, everybody was making them. Best to get legal advice to be sure.

[GeorgeZ]

Maybe we should ask Flo about patents used in his old and new heads. And what about Vinylium products? They are using Neumann's design in some parts at least.
If anybody wants to design a complete new cutting lathe then there will be no problems, but any copy of their product or a product based on their design would be problematic.
That Italian company developing a new cutting lathe may have problems when using some patented parts and designs...
Regards,

[audiosteam]

As far as I know all those patents are 20+ years therefore expired. They are available for anyone willing to extend his knowledge and develop new products.
Those older patents are a great historical source but I see little to no interest in copying or cloning old designs. We have more experience and access to newer materials and technologies...

So nowadays all the older, classical designs are accessible and free to use. There are no new patents because no one is coming with new groundbreaking designs. Patents were important for our industry when record sales were biiiiiiiiiig. There was a real market and competition. Despite records sales growth evolution in the last years it's far from being what it was.

So no new patents wait except maybe humm HD vinyl ( patent EP 3 217 401 A1)

[flozki]

patents lifetime is 20 years. if you pay every year your fees. and you pay for each country...
so most companies just cover the important countries.
so quickly a 200k$ bill for your patents every year... so think twice to make patents.
so for neumann:
all gone. and there where never aptents for the sx68,74. i think only for dmm stuff and early heads.
as georg took a westrex and just made it better.he could not do patents for it. already westrex heads patent situation was not clear.
bluemlein made all the work. he had patents but before its practical time.

vinylium never did stuff based on neumann designs. and never sold neumann heads.
only spare parts that fit...

all heads sc99 ,caruso,dialba, lacallas is all new drawings.

amps as well. its close but different. time goes. new materials show up.. so we always followed new tracks.

and the good thing is that experience can not be copied and its hard to steal. so we dont need patents.
the theory is clear.

[flozki]

hmm
strange i did an update , as i accidently submitted unfinished.
but it seems someone put it back to unfinished text.and i cna not edit last post.
anyway. to moderator please better delete my full post than go back to unfinished post.

but some adding note that can make confusion.

vinylium never did 1:1 product copies of neumann always a redesigned version based on neumann schematics or or just spare parts that fit.
they never sold 1:1 copies of neumann heads

exactly to avoid exactly such a discussion.or to come in a possible bad situation..which i guess allmost all people of u47 should be in then also...

all the additional text is gone.too bad. .and no energy to rewrite.

[Phinster]

The VMS 80 direct drive pitch system might be worth looking at regarding any new designs people might be contemplating....

[andrew93]

I seriously doubt any patent is active as of now.