home made foiler

Story I heard was it was "invented" by a couple of retired guys in their

70's after taking a class, and having trouble foiling. I guess you stole the idea from them, and infringed on their copyright. I don't think they'll mind.

The white wheel for applying the foil I turned on a wood lathe out of a piece of plastic. It could have been a piece of hardwood or other material that can be turned on a lathe of some sort. It has a spring under it to raise it for adjusting (wing nut) it to the height of the edge of the glass. The groove in the wheel is the width of the foil and there is a centered inner groove the width of the glass. I think I could have gotten away with just a single groove the width of the foil, but having the 2 groove widths made the foil start to form itself around the edge of the glass.

The 2 guides are plastic bushings on 6-32 screws (hardware items). The

2nd guide makes the tape turn so that the backing is stripped away. Finally, there are 3 deck screws that hold the foil.

There is absolutely no copyright relevance here at all.

If they patented the invention, then it'd be patent infringement... but patents expire. So if it was issued more than 17 years ago, it's already expired. Inventions patented since '95 have expiration dates

20 years from the filing date.

sounds like he might be infringing on the patent...if he decides he want to market and sell his version.

Andy

Steve Ackman wrote:

Right. Contingent on about 6 or 7 "ifs" there could be a case.

Don't worry. I would not want to infringe on their idea and try to sell it even if it is not patented. I actually did not think it would be that good. I am quite used to using tape to edge things and used to tape car bodies and thought it would be like that. I found that it was sort of tough getting the tape centered on the edge of the glass by hand and thought it would be interesting to see if a foiler would help. I heard so many pro's and con's. I was pleasantly suprised.

I've been using the Table Foiler almost since it came out. I think it's a great tool. Doesn't work for all glass but most consistent thicknesses like Spectrum, Kokomo, etc it works great. I've probably sold over 200 of them and everyone that has bought one has told me they really like it. BTW...the real "Table Foiler" does have a patent.

Andy

snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com wrote:

It's a pretty new tool. Only a few years old at best.

Somehow I missed the relevance of the quotes above.

Patent #6,554,042 for a "Table foiler" filed in Aug. 2001 by Kenneth and Wendell Carlson, so more than 15 years left on the patent.