Traxxas Patents

[Fly In My Soup]

On 20/02/2018 at 23:05, Guns said:

Its like getting mad at a multi millionaire not paying their taxes due to some loophole some lawyer has found. Its no good getting mad at the individual, you should be getting mad at the fact there is a law/loophole exists in the first place no?

 

Here here!

 

Patent reform is what's needed, u.s.a. has been looking at their auto manufacturing market for a while now with plans for patent reform

[dazp1976]

52 minutes ago, mond said:

I don't know but Schumacher  is UK based, so maybe much harder to take action against.  I'm sure being within the EU would also offer considerable protection from malicious US firms trying to take legal action. Well, for the next year anyway. Then we're open to being bullied. 

You just had to get it in there somehow didn't you

[J.K]

1 hour ago, Fly In My Soup said:

It may be immoral, but it is good business sense

 

Only time will tell if this is good business sense. Are antics like this likely to win them customers? Quite the opposite I would've thought. Yes we're a very small market in the grand scheme of things, but what if the European market stopped buying Traxxas? I'm no businessman but doesn't make much sense to me.

[Fly In My Soup]

On 21/02/2018 at 11:40, James1986 said:

 

Only time will tell if this is good business sense. Are antics like this likely to win them customers? Quite the opposite I would've thought. Yes we're a very small market in the grand scheme of things, but what if the European market stopped buying Traxxas? I'm no businessman but doesn't make much sense to me.

 

Yeah good point well made........ Although if I had a penny for every traxxas thread I saw on this forum alone id do ok!!!

 

I suppose you've got the nail on the head there......will it destroy its own image and thus lose customers??

 

Or will people continue to buy, for the rig itself, and ignore the companies bad image.....

 

As you say James, time will tell...... I'd love to see traxxas's sales figures for their individual models

[XV Pilot]

It might not make any difference, but in this age of consumer activism, I'd like to think people will vote with their wallets and buy elsewhere.

[OllieNZ]

Current Traxxas business plan......https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_troll 

[Kpowell911]

ITT: People who werent going to buy a Traxxas product anyway, stating that theyre not going to buy a Traxxas product.

 

 

[PraetoR]

6 minutes ago, Guns said:

ITT: People who werent going to buy a Traxxas product anyway, stating that theyre not going to buy a Traxxas product.

 

ITT: People who forgive Traxxas of everything, will forgive Traxxas of everything.

[Kpowell911]

2 minutes ago, Praet0r87 said:

 

ITT: People who forgive Traxxas of everything, will forgive Traxxas of everything.

All that annoys me with them is they dont do a Platinum version or roller of the every model. I want to use my own radio system/electrics if possible 

[mond]

3 hours ago, Fly In My Soup said:

 

Nuff said!

 

Almost 90% of their £20-50m revenue is u.s based

Oddly that's far lower than Hobbico's entire business. Just Hobbico can't apparently manage themselves. 

[PraetoR]

2 minutes ago, Guns said:

All that annoys me with them is they dont do a Platinum version or roller of the every model. I want to use my own radio system/electrics if possible 

 

That doesn't seem to be the... how would you word it... "Traxxas way"? That's not quite right, but you get it.

 

Usually, the kit version is a specced-up version of the RTR, to justify the extra work (and often, relatively little in the way of price difference). Traxxas don't really do "high spec" versions of their models... things like carbon fibre parts, alloy parts, titanium shock shafts, CV driveshafts, etc etc.

 

"Handling" and "racing" don't go with the Traxxas ethos, they are much more "get out there and rip it up!" so RTR suits them, much better.

[babylon]

A proof in point that competition drives innervation is to take a look at the PC Graphics market, Nvidia have been profiting off the back of the same old GPU architecture for past couple of years, Supposedly they may run out there new architecture this year that they have been sitting on for god knows how long, But that isn't even guaranteed, And why, Because AMD has been no competition, Vega was a total dead duck, Nvidia thought great, We'll just hold back Volta until we need it, And that's not yet.

 Competition, Or lack off, Is the reason why I can still eBay my AMD HD7970 for £100-£150 (Depending on the day) that I paid 200 quid for a good 3 years ago,  A GPU released 6 years ago can still hold it's own today because of the lack of competition.

Edited February 21, 2018 by babylon

[Oh How Original]

18 hours ago, Rover Man said:

 

I was just thinking the exact same thing. How can you patent a toy car wheel ????

 

'merica.

 

All that needs to be said.

 

People will keep buying from these people, so they will continue to grow.

The exact reason I don't buy Traxxas, I refuse to fund the company who are making this hobby worse.

Edited February 21, 2018 by Oh How Original

[mond]

6 minutes ago, babylon said:

A proof in point that competition drives innervation is to take a look at the PC Graphics market, Nvidia have been profiting off the back of the same old GPU architecture for past couple of years, Supposedly they may run out there new architecture this year that they have been sitting on for god knows how long, But that isn't even guaranteed, And why, Because AMD has been no competition, Vega was a total dead duck, Nvidia thought great, We'll just hold back Volta until we need it, And that's not yet.

 Competition, Or lack off, Is the reason why I can still eBay my AMD HD7970 for £100-£150 (Depending on the day) that I paid 200 quid for a good 3 years ago,  A GPU released 6 years ago can still hold it's own today because of the lack of competition.

 

Also have you seen the price of graphics cards today? I was going to replace a R390 Black edition with a 1070ti but they 600+ quid. 

[Kpowell911]

32 minutes ago, Praet0r87 said:

 

That doesn't seem to be the... how would you word it... "Traxxas way"? That's not quite right, but you get it.

 

Usually, the kit version is a specced-up version of the RTR, to justify the extra work (and often, relatively little in the way of price difference). Traxxas don't really do "high spec" versions of their models... things like carbon fibre parts, alloy parts, titanium shock shafts, CV driveshafts, etc etc.

 

"Handling" and "racing" don't go with the Traxxas ethos, they are much more "get out there and rip it up!" so RTR suits them, much better.

They do a Platinum edition Slash 4x4

[Kpowell911]

2 minutes ago, mond said:

 

Also have you seen the price of graphics cards today? I was going to replace a R390 Black edition with a 1070ti but they 600+ quid. 

Crypto Minings caused that hasnt it though?

[mond]

Just now, Guns said:

Crypto Minings caused that hasnt it though?

Yeah, it's entirely down to that. The worlds greatest ponzi scheme. 

[babylon]

1 minute ago, Guns said:

They do a Platinum edition Slash 4x4

 

But why would you buy one, It's £450,  I don't really know anything about the slash,  But would it not be better to buy the RTR for £400, sell the electrics and the bits you replace to buy your own upgrades, It's not like the Platinum comes with much in the way as extra's, And your be paying Traxxas inflated prices for any alloy it does come with.

[Kpowell911]

5 minutes ago, mond said:

Yeah, it's entirely down to that. The worlds greatest ponzi scheme. 

Cant tell if you are been sarcastic? just heard a few people who build computers be very annoyed that Crypto Mining has put their riga back months in terms of affording to finish them.

 

Totally Agree crypto is a huge ponzi, but is the mining the sole reason for graphics card going up in price so much?

[Kpowell911]

Just now, babylon said:

 

But why would you buy one, It's £450,  I don't really know anything about the slash,  But would it not be better to buy the RTR for £400, sell the electrics and the bits you replace to buy your own upgrades, It's not like the Platinum comes with much in the way as extra's, And your be paying Traxxas inflated prices for any alloy it does come with.

Maybe now using the UK prices, but when I imported my Platinum back in 2016 it was less than £300 shipped with taxes using a nice Tower code, at the time the UK rtr 4x4 was £429.

[mond]

1 minute ago, Guns said:

Cant tell if you are been sarcastic? just heard a few people who build computers be very annoyed that Crypto Mining has put their riga back months in terms of affording to finish them.

 

Totally Agree crypto is a huge ponzi, but is the mining the sole reason for graphics card going up in price so much?

Pretty much. The rigs build to mine use GPUs to do it. Nvidia and AMD must be loving it. 

[babylon]

18 minutes ago, Guns said:

Cant tell if you are been sarcastic? just heard a few people who build computers be very annoyed that Crypto Mining has put their riga back months in terms of affording to finish them.

 

Totally Agree crypto is a huge ponzi, but is the mining the sole reason for graphics card going up in price so much?

 A first they didn't think it was, But it is, The Vega is not a great card, But it's a good miner, Not looked as of late, But before Christmas,  You couldn't buy one, Everywhere was out of stock, And that was a card that was being sold for more than £200 above it's RRP.

 

Just had a quick look, The RX580 was a card that was priced on release in the 180-230 sort of area depending if you had the 4GB or 8gb version, your now looking at just under £400-£500, That's how mental it's got.

Edited February 21, 2018 by babylon

[ghazghul]

19 minutes ago, mond said:

 

Also have you seen the price of graphics cards today? I was going to replace a R390 Black edition with a 1070ti but they 600+ quid. 

GPU prices are silly, pesky cryptocoin miners.  My R9 380x that I've just replaced is worth more 2nd hand than what I paid for it.  Same with RAM.. I bought 8Gb of good DDR4 for £40 when I built my machine and it's more than doubled now.  I just buy 2nd hand from ebay now.. 1070 for £200 and 32Gb for the same.

 

Back on topic : 

 

Patents were to encourage innovation by protecting someone instantly ripping off your new invention before you get a chance to profit from it.  Seems fair enough.  Come up with something cool and have a few years to make some money of it either by actually producing it or licencing it to someone else.

 

They were not for preventing competition by grabbing a patent for everything you can think of (or has already been thought of but not grabbed yet) and suing all your competitors.  Unfortunately this is a good business model now and the US patent system allows it.

 

I guess you can't blame Traxxas as if they didn't do it someone else would.  They could however have got all the patents registered and then chose not to enforce any of them.. protecting themselves and everyone else at the same time.  It's just less profitable.

Edited February 21, 2018 by ghazghul

[PraetoR]

I can't believe the price of GPUs! I bought a brand new Zotac GTX 1070, this time last year... £370. Now look at them!

[babylon]

4 minutes ago, ghazghul said:

It's just less profitable.

Or profiteering, One is acceptable, One is not.