Say goodbye to the Bosch Reaxx


Tom Cancelleri

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Given the recent news and reviews coming out about the Reaxx, they'd be in trouble even if it weren't barred from import. I've seen some glowing reviews, and some other reviewers clearly got lemons. Reports of power issues, calibration trouble, and false-fires.

Also, apparently your phone can set off the safety mechanism. Bosch requires you to set your phone to airplane mode when using the saw, and the customer service agents will blame your phone in their scripts. This is a major oversight if it made it to market with a sensor like that.

 

http://toolguyd.com/bosch-reaxx-table-saw-review/

http://toolguyd.com/bosch-reaxx-table-saw-hesitations/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LoTmSYHIkQ

 

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7 minutes ago, Tom Cancelleri said:

I think the tech is great, but upon the patent expiring, there will be an influx of options. Think about AOL being king back in the 90s and then once other companies had the ability to offer up faster and better services they fell by the wayside because they had banked on the one thing they offered without having another product to market. 

Wait for the new SawStop dust collector, it brakes the impeller upon detecting dentures entering your ducting. 

I think we'd all prefer if SawStop worked on new tools, rather than trying to sue the pants off everybody else. A bandsaw seems like the logical next step in making a safer workshop. Not usually as catastrophic as tablesaw injuries, but still dangerous.

Or perhaps a safety jointer, though the kinetic energy in one of those cutter heads seems like a bigger engineering problem. My father's missing a good chunk of thumb from a teenage accident with one of those.

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This comes down to how much Bosch wants to spend to keep the fight going.  Bosch still has the ability to make tremendous profits off the Reaxx saw, because of their ability to sell everywhere else, which is where saw stop falls short.  I also don't believe that they would have gotten additional time for patent protection on the job site saw.  I don't believe that SS will come up with other products where this technology will be valuable or feasible in other machinery, however a band saw would be logical starting point.  However would we be surprised if another company has something patented for this already to block SS as a grudge for SS high cost and/or unwillingness of licensing their technology.

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48 minutes ago, Mike. said:

Looks like sawstop has a patent for a bandsaw brake, I have no idea why they never brought one to market.   

http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-adv.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&d=PG01&p=1&S1=20020170400.PGNR.&OS=DN/20020170400&RS=DN/20020170400

Here is a list of all sawstop's patents.  They cover a wide range of machines.  Gass did offer to license the technology to other manufacturers before he started sawstop.  They told him to go fly a kite.  Personally I don't think he price gouges. A sawstop is typically $500 over a comparable PM.  

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=0&f=S&l=50&TERM1=gass%3B+stephen&FIELD1=INNM&co1=AND&TERM2=&FIELD2=&d=PTXT

The band saw would be super easy. I think the reason they haven't brought it to market is because they have a lot more competition there and the benefit isn't as much. I can't make sense of their patent gibberish but it'd be as easy as charging the band saw blade and then having a cylinder attached to the foot brake that fires and is able to be reset. I could probably rig something up on my current band saw.

**Edit
Yeah that patent is stupid is why it never went to market. https://www.google.com/patents/US20020170400 It cuts and stops the blade. WHY!? when you can just stop the wheel and don't destroy the blade.

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Mike, I have heard that what Gass was looking for in licensing fees for his technology was overpriced to the point that it was unrealistic. Bosch is well known for licensing innovation in the auto industry, making it affordable for others to incorporate and in turn made lots of money for Bosch.  I know more cars than saws argument.  Back to his licensing fees being unrealistic, manufacturers realized the technology was sound, but by the time they redesigned the saws to accept and paying the license fee, it would make the price for retail to high and would take an extremely long time to recoup the costs because of the relatively small market.  I'm not bashing SS, because if I had the space and money, I would buy one, no questions asked.

As for the technology on bandsaws, I don't think we will see a SS band saw.  There just seems to many obstacles to designing something new and different, and with different blade widths and tensioning requirements, it's really hard to see 1 mechanism being able to stop the different blade options.  Even with the TS, you have different cartridges.

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12 minutes ago, Mike. said:

Could be, and that is surely their side of the story.  He has proven you can sell it at a $500 (or whatever) upcharge, but even if he was asking $250 per saw, they probably did not believe they could justify the upcharge.

I know a lot of people hate on Gass for, I don't know, having an idea and making money.  It always seemed trollish to me to hate on the guy.  Yeah, lobbying the government to make something mandatory is kinda BS, but don't hate the player, hate the game.  

Well, we can always hate the player and the game right? :D

More seriously, this seems like a very legitimate place for them to fight. I dislike Gass for his lobbying attempts, but his patents do seem to clearly cover the Reaxx. I just read over them, and hadn't realized they cover retracting the blade specifically, rather than the detection method. The detection isn't the important part of the patent, it's pulling the blade under the table.

In this case, Bosch did pretty clearly infringe on their patents, and not like Samsung infringing on Apple's "Rounded Square" patent.

2 hours ago, Woodenskye said:

This comes down to how much Bosch wants to spend to keep the fight going.  Bosch still has the ability to make tremendous profits off the Reaxx saw, because of their ability to sell everywhere else, which is where saw stop falls short...

I don't think they could sell the Reaxx, at least as designed for the US market, in Europe, as it doesn't have a blade brake which I believe is required.

Edit: specifically, the blade takes a long time to spin down when turned off. Realized "blade brake" was unclear.

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2 hours ago, Mike. said:

I am glad Sawstop was able to protect their IP against Bosch.  I am a big fan of intellectual property laws.

 

8 minutes ago, Mike. said:

Yeah, lobbying the government to make something mandatory is kinda BS, but don't hate the player, hate the game.  

I'm really confused your telling me you love patent law but yet are telling me to hate the game of patent law?

I hear ya Tom i Love hockey but boy do i hate Sydney Crosby, i'll support player hating.

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I remember getting a very douchy vibe from the SS guy on a couple podcast interviews.  I remember looking into it a little bit and the patent seemed a bit over-broad and his lobbying attempts really anger me as a libertarian.  If I want a saw that is capable of cutting off my finger I should be able to own said saw, take your sausage savers and sell them to people who want them. 

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1 minute ago, Mike. said:

No, I don't like that he lobbied the government to try to make his technology mandatory.   I am totally cool with patent law. Two very different things.  I believe in the free markets, and you can't have a free market without property rights. 

Sorry I'm having an off day. Yeah lobbying i hate that game. I feel like I'm trying to drag my mental feet through concrete. I guess I'll boil it down to football I'll hate the game and the players.

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Looks like Sawstop only has another 2.5 to 3.5 years before their patents expire anyway. I wonder if what they would have spent on lawyers to defend the patent actually made a net profit for them? A cheap patent suit typically costs 10 million, and that just goes through the administrative process. They actually had a judge rule on this, they might be closer to 50 million in fees for lawyers and experts to win this one, and then only to maintain dominance in the US for another 2.5 to 3.5 years. 

And of course I would be shocked if bosch didn't appeal this matter.

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I remember watching one of the early demonstrations of Sawstop technology at a show 16 years ago. Sawstop originally tried to license their patents to the big table saw manufacturers and no one was interested so they made their own product line.

Now the guys who wouldn't buy their original technology are coming out with a competing product and I don't blame Sawstop for filing a suit to protect their patents

 

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3 hours ago, minorhero said:

Looks like Sawstop only has another 2.5 to 3.5 years before their patents expire anyway. I wonder if what they would have spent on lawyers to defend the patent actually made a net profit for them? A cheap patent suit typically costs 10 million, and that just goes through the administrative process. They actually had a judge rule on this, they might be closer to 50 million in fees for lawyers and experts to win this one, and then only to maintain dominance in the US for another 2.5 to 3.5 years. 

And of course I would be shocked if bosch didn't appeal this matter.

A judge ruling in their favor would probably start the ink drying on the lawsuit against bosche for damages..

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I actually hate patent laws. I think they stifle innovation and lead to absurd patent trollism. I'm not an expert on this, so not here to start an argument with @Mike.:) But ... Is Bosch somehow surprised by this? We're all living in the patent world, so I'm confused why they ever went down this path to begin with.

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10 hours ago, Cliff said:

I actually hate patent laws. I think they stifle innovation and lead to absurd patent trollism. I'm not an expert on this, so not here to start an argument with @Mike.:) But ... Is Bosch somehow surprised by this? We're all living in the patent world, so I'm confused why they ever went down this path to begin with.

I actually believe that the help innovation. Companies are always stealing ideas, now they have to change them to make them different from the competitor. I have a friend who is  an engineer for a heavy equipment company. Their patent team goes out and pulls all the patents for competitors and they examine every detail and see how they can improve upon their designs and alter them to make their machines better. They also check to make sure that they aren't infringing. Also i know it's well said here but 99% of the time something that isn't well made is the result of the accountants and sales department forcing tool and equipment prices down.

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