I didn't want to bring this thread back to life, but some of the NEL coil talk drives me crazy. I am a patent attorney with degrees in electrical engineering and I wanted to comment on a few points. I am posting under a different account than I normally do to preserve some anonymity; nothing I say should be construed as LEGAL ADVICE and is presented for informational purposes only. If you want to know more, do your own research or seek out the advice of a paid professional.
First, Minelab holds a 43-claim patent on the VFLEX technology, as indicated on
on their website, with the United States Patent Office (
via Google), and under the international
Patent Cooperation Treaty (which includes the Ukraine). What does this mean?
The patent right is the right to prevent others from making, using, or selling the covered invention. That's all it is. If NEL in the Ukraine is violating any one or all of the claims in the Minelab patent, then Minelab has the legal right to sue for an injunction and damages in any of the countries their patent is violated. And in patents, damages are big -- in the USA, you can get triple actual damages for willful infringement plus costs and expenses. Of course, it might cost you millions and years of time to get there.
Is NEL infringing on the Minelab VFLEX patent? If NEL is infringing, why doesn't Minelab sue?
I am not going to take the time to delve into Minelab's patent claims and then disassemble and compare a NEL coil to assess whether the claims are infringed. On this point, I am just going to give Minelab the benefit of the doubt that NEL is infringing. If NEL can come up with a coil that doesn't infringe the claims and still works with the X-Terra line, they are free to do so. More power to them. However, given the way such designs are implemented, it is highly unlikely they could do so. Finally, if Minelab's Patent Attorney drafted a set of claims that could be easily gotten around, he deserves to be fired. I'm not going to even address the validity of the patent. It doesn't matter whether you think they should have the patent or not -- and I am sure you have the legal and technical expertise to analyze patent claim validity -- they have it, so legally they are entitled to the patent rights.
So why aren't they suing NEL into oblivion, eh? This is conjecture, but if I had to guess, it would be that it's too expensive and time consuming at this point. I'm sure they have put NEL on written notice -- as required for maximum damages -- but it might not be worth it to sue them at this point, and particularly to try to sue them in the Ukraine* where they are manufactured. If you lose 10% of your profits to sales of knock-offs, it doesn't make much sense to spend 25%+ of your remaining profits to sue. This is especially true since the X-Terra line of metal detectors is, in the end, only a small slice of the hobbyist metal detector market segment, which is turn is only a tiny piece of the entire metal detector market. I am willing to bet that the majority of Minelab's business comes from government and industry: geology & mining, security, military contracts, etc.
Minelab has the right to petition the US state department (actually, the US International Trade Commission) to ban imports of infringing goods**, but again, it may currently cost more to do so now than it hurts them in terms of lost sales. So dealers are able to import small numbers of NEL coils for the X-Terra (remember, other NEL coils may be perfectly legal) under the radar. It doesn't make it right, but it makes it possible. And if the activity became large enough, you bet your butts Minelab will take action.
Finally, if you are complaining that NEL should be allowed to sell coils that are different models from what CoilTek or Minelab sell, well... I suspect that you're also probably the same type of entitled person who breaks other laws that personally inconvenience you, if you think you can get away with it.
A patent gives Minelab the right to stop NEL, so ask Minelab to make you a new coil. Otherwise just live with it and wait for the patent to expire in about 9 years.
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*I have several Ukrainian lawyer-friends who live and work in Kiev and their court system is not, shall we say, quite up to US standards for justice, efficiency, and freedom from corruption. (And you thought our courts were slow and expensive.)
**interestingly, under the Lanham Act, you can import an infringing good that you bought abroad into the USA for your personal use, but you can not import infringing goods to sell.
