Totem Patent Ends Dec 22 - who’s next

John Clarkwrote:

The reason totems, aliens, etc are so good in shit placements is because of geometry not available to double axles

Maybe I'm just not seeing it, but from the design in the patent, it looks like a similar method of loading cables attached to the lobes could be applied to a double axle cam. Not sure how much benefit there would be though.

I feel like the shape of the lobes allows them to be similar to the same range as small double axle cams.

People will pretty much rip them off, only really improving on the bulk and the way the legs are implemented.

I'm curious what brand has the most R&D money to get the first copy out.

Matthew Jaggerswrote:

I'm curious what brand has the most R&D money to get the first copy out.

Easy. BD.

Yoda Jedi Knightwrote:

Easy. BD.

If petzl were willing to go into protection, it would be a good way to enter the market. 

John Clarkwrote:

The reason totems, aliens, etc are so good in shit placements is because of geometry not available to double axles

Pretty sure this isn't true, aliens and other micro cams such as the micro friend have larger cam angle this means less force on the rock(bigger range), the big difference that seems to cause the extra holding power in these cams is the very soft aluminium on the lobes. The soft alloys importance is why metolius despite having the lowest cam angle out there of 13.25° and putting in theory much more force out on the rock it doesn't do as well in marginal placements, the alloy they use is just too hard. 

The totems are very different to these other cams. From what I have read and understand, the actual cam angle is 20° which allows for a huge range but the direct loading of the cams means the effective cam angle is 13°, this varies depending on how retracted the cam lobes are as there is a lever function of the unique lobe shape, hence the variable cam angle figure you often see. 

This is then changed once again when there are flairing cracks involved but that I don't understand at all. The math goes right over my head. 

Yoda Jedi Knightwrote:

Easy. BD.

I hope they get something right like this in the cam world. I don't like a single one of their in-production cams.

Matthew Jaggerswrote:

I hope they get something right like this in the cam world. I don't like a single one of their in-production cams.

I have a rack of C4’s, which seem ubiquitous, and a rack of Friends. Both seem fine to me. I don’t climb hard enough to justify buying anything smaller than the 0.3. Maybe soon though. Might as well wait to see the totem copies.

Yoda Jedi Knightwrote:

I have a rack of C4’s, which seem ubiquitous, and a rack of Friends. Both seem fine to me. I don’t climb hard enough to justify buying anything smaller than the 0.3. Maybe soon though. Might as well wait to see the totem copies.

I still find plenty of benefit for the .2 and .1 sizes on climbs as easy as 5.6 depending on the route even though that is 5 grades below my limit on trad.  Plus the weight penalty is minimal in those sizes.  Depends on the route though I guess but I find plenty of times where I'm on easy terrain but run out and would like some pro but the only option available is a small parallel crack. Even the smallest 2 ball nuts are great in certain situations on easy routes and can turn an "R" rated moderate climb in to PG

Yoda Jedi Knightwrote:

 I don’t climb hard enough to justify buying anything smaller than the 0.3. Maybe soon though.

I never understood this reasoning and I have heard it quite a bit.  Protection is protection no matter your ability or not.  If you are thinking small cams are only for more difficult routes you are really limiting the opportunities to protect a climb, any climb.

I’m not saying it’s perfectly sound, but my reasoning is that it’s usually easy enough to make a few more moves to a different placement or I can slot a nut somewhere. Maybe it’s just the places I’ve climbed. If the only way up is jamming a 0.2 crack, I’d consider that pretty hard.

Yoda Jedi Knightwrote:

I’m not saying it’s perfectly sound, but my reasoning is that it’s usually easy enough to make a few more moves to a different placement or I can slot a nut somewhere. Maybe it’s just the places I’ve climbed. If the only way up is jamming a 0.2 crack, I’d consider that pretty hard.

It's probably related to the places you climb.  Lots of trad climbing areas involve face climbing protected by cracks/features of all sizes.  Sometimes you need to move across unprotected sections between protectable features, and you may only have a few small pieces over long portions of a pitch, even on moderate climbs.

I imagine you're climbing a lot of pure crack based on your description. 

Anybody hear any chatter about this? We're about 2.5 months from the expiration date. What's the legality of promoting/advertising the release of a copycat product before the patent ends?

It is time

Exciting times, nothing seen at ispo this year so maybe we'll get something for 2024.

All the big companies only released all their new small cams a few years ago, doesn't work with their product life cycles. The only people who could maybe justify it would be metolius but it's not really their style. 

Edit: patent was Extended

that guy named sebwrote:

Edit: patent was Extended

Know for how long? I don’t see that anywhere

interesting how the larger patent log (climbing chocks) reads as a who’s who and history of cam innovation

Does it say how much longer they have? That's disappointing from a consumer stand point, but good for them. They did something significantly better than any of their competition so they deserve it. 

I understood patents to typically be issued for 17 years with the option to extend the patent for another 17 years.  That was the obvious expectation.

Jason4Toowrote:

I understood patents to typically be issued for 17 years with the option to extend the patent for another 17 years.  That was the obvious expectation.

Real-life patent attorney here, although I no longer practice in the field.  Your understanding was only partially (but significantly) wrong based on the "old" (pre-1995) law, when patents were valid for 17 years from the date of issuance.  There was never any extension, at least not from when I learned the patent laws (which would have included a ways back as extensions would still have been relevant, all I mean to say is maybe there were extensions under some very old patent law, I don't know.  Perhaps you're thinking of copyright terms, which did have extensions, although that too changed). 

Patents are now valid for 20 years from the effective filing date plus any adjustment based on the prosecution history (the Patent Office can be super slow in examining applications, and the adjustment is meant to extend the term based on the degree of that slowness).  Maintenance fees have to be paid periodically, or the patent will expire before its full term.  For example, the patent we're discussing here had a term adjustment of 165 days (it says so on the patent).  Twenty years plus 165 days after the filing date of June 28, 2002 is Dec. 10, 2002.  

I don't know what the guy who says the patent was "extended" was getting at; unless things have changed substantially since I was active in the field, that's not the way it works.  (There can be complexities beyond what I've written here; I don't think any are relevant to the Totem patent, but who knows, I'm just trying to pass along some background to anyone who may be interested, but as they say, no good deed goes unpunished.)  

Edit:

Does it say how much longer they have? That's disappointing from a consumer stand point, but good for them. They did something significantly better than any of their competition so they deserve it. 

There's no provision to extend a patent just because the invention seems to be particularly beneficial.  From a policy standpoint, perhaps patent terms should depend on the degree of inventiveness or some other factors, but they don't.

pfwein Weinbergwrote:

Real-life patent attorney here, although I no longer practice in the field.  Your understanding was only partially (but significantly) wrong based on the "old" (pre-1995) law, when patents were valid for 17 years from the date of issuance.  There was never any extension, at least not from when I learned the patent laws (which would have included a ways back as extensions would still have been relevant, all I mean to say is maybe there were extensions under some very old patent law, I don't know.  Perhaps you're thinking of copyright terms, which did have extensions, although that too changed). 

Patents are now valid for 20 years from the effective filing date plus any adjustment based on the prosecution history (the Patent Office can be super slow in examining applications, and the adjustment is meant to extend the term based on the degree of that slowness).  Maintenance fees have to be paid periodically, or the patent will expire before its full term.  For example, the patent we're discussing here had a term adjustment of 165 days (it says so on the patent).  Twenty years plus 165 days after the filing date of June 28, 2002 is Dec. 10, 2002.  

I don't know what the guy who says the patent was "extended" was getting at; unless things have changed substantially since I was active in the field, that's not the way it works.  (There can be complexities beyond what I've written here; I don't think any are relevant to the Totem patent, but who knows, I'm just trying to pass along some background to anyone who may be interested, but as they say, no good deed goes unpunished.)  

Edit:

Does it say how much longer they have? That's disappointing from a consumer stand point, but good for them. They did something significantly better than any of their competition so they deserve it. 

There's no provision to extend a patent just because the invention seems to be particularly beneficial.  From a policy standpoint, perhaps patent terms should depend on the degree of inventiveness or some other factors, but they don't.

The Google Patent page says "Adjusted expiration" for 10 December 2022.  I think the previous poster assumed "adjusted expiration" means "the expiration date of this patent, which was originally 10 Dec. 2022, was adjusted to a later date."  But now that you explained the term adjustment, I'm guessing it means the "adjusted expiration was 10 Dec. 2022, which means that as of 11 Dec., this patent is expired."

I would love to see a "single stem" version of a direct loading cam where the wires from both set of lobes terminate in the same thumb loop like most modern cams. It would not be as good for two lobe placement but should still be an improvement over traditional cams. It would be nice to have a low bulk version.