Question about making accessories for existing products.

[RipplesOfLife]

Hi,

Just wanted to know if for example:

I made an accessory for, oh... lets say... my Arc AAA, and decide to market the accessory and sell it (mass produce).

Would I have to get permission from the makers of the product?

I guess I would need permission(usually pay a fee, right?) for mentioning the name of the product to describe what my accessory does.

Or, I guess another thing that could happen is that the maker of the original product like's my idea and buy it from me, or pay me peanuts for a long term.

I have some ideas for products, but don't really know where to start.

I mean, how do you get from "idea" to "mass production"? (A lot of money maybe???)

And then there's designing it, would need to design it myself? Or just a rough idea and then out source?

Thanks.

 

[nerdgineer]

IANAL, but I think if your accessory doesn't use any proprietary connections to attach, you don't need permission. If it uses a special connection unique to the product which is copyrighted or patented by the owner, then you will need to get a license to use that unique connector. One example of the latter is the Hasselblad camera which uses a unique bayonet attachment for lens filters (instead of the normal simple screw in). No one can make filters for the thing except Hasseblad; so regular 72 mm filters cost like $40 and a Hasselblad camera filter costs like $200.

Smart company...

 

[RipplesOfLife]

IANAL, but I think if your accessory doesn't use any proprietary connections to attach, you don't need permission. If it uses a special connection unique to the product which is copyrighted or patented by the owner, then you will need to get a license to use that unique connector. One example of the latter is the Hasselblad camera which uses a unique bayonet attachment for lens filters (instead of the normal simple screw in). No one can make filters for the thing except Hasseblad; so regular 72 mm filters cost like $40 and a Hasselblad camera filter costs like $200.

Smart company...

Ok, so lets just pretend that the Arc AAA did not come with a metal clip. And lets pretend that metal clips did not exist (or did not exist for its size). Then I come along and design that metal clip according to Arc AAA's dimensions.

Ok, how about this. An accessory that changes the original product's capability by simply attaching onto the original product. For example, changes the beam (I guess that would be like a special reflector/lens, or something like that). In this case, example again, the Arc AAA head was never intentionally designed to have an attachment. But the designed attachment was designed to accommodate the shape of the head.

In other words, a company makes a product. The product is great, but just lacks a few minor things, then the active consumer designs a mod attachment to patch up the short comings. And decides to market and mass produce it.

 

[jnj1033]

That's exactly what Nite-Ize, among others, does: they create aftermarket drop-in mods for Maglites. I have no idea whether they pay a fee for the privilege, but I have noticed that they have disclaimers in their marketing literature indicating that they have no affiliation with Maglite, and are showing pictures of the flashlights purely to show what their products are designed to fit. Maybe you could try to contact Nite-Ize to see how they do it.

Sorry I can't be more helpful than that. With 20,000 members, there has got to be someone here who knows about intellectual property law. As far as designing and manufacturing, maybe some of the pro modders could chime in.