1. Patreon . F! -you! Subscribestar thats where the the action is going. Patreon is for the docile gov't shills people.
   Patreon folded like a house of cars as soon as card companies start to meddle in politics.

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2. I dunno about the T-shirts.. speaking for myself, I like brighter t-shirts because heat absorption. Your designs has been focused on darker designs with bright print making bright shirts sell out in my size ALL THE F'NG TIME so…. there.

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3. There are quite a few reasons to get patents and you touched on some. Yes, you can get one to extract royalties from others or to well. For example, IBM has many patents for royalty purposes as part of the business model. One I am aware of (because I worked for a company that developed the first machines for this) is "Chemical Mechanical Planarization". This is an important semiconductor manufacturing process step that allows making multi-layer integrated circuits. IBM has made billions (with a "B") from royalties for this. Other reasons are because if you don't, somebody else will and then YOU can lose the right to manufacture what your own product. Another is as part of an intellectual property strategy where a company's patent portfolio is part of its worth and they can be used defensively against competitors or offsetting trade-offs can be made with competitors. It can get extremely complicated. And then, there is the situation where you get into litigation. I was involved in a case between two fairly small companies and one had a million dollars in legal fees and the other a million and a half dollars. And then you have to deal with how the CAFC (Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit) suddenly makes a 180 turn on case law. For example, for pretty much forever infringement required an "element by element" match to the patent claims. It was NOT infringement if some combination of your elements produced the same result as some combination of the patent claims. Then a case appeared involved fiber optics where a patent (and I may have the technicalities backwards, but it doesn't matter to make the point) had one claim of an undoped glass core and another claim of a negatively doped cladding (helps the light travel). Someone starting making a fiberoptic that had an undoped cladding and a positively doped core. The result of the TWO SEPARATE claims combined produced the same result, but it failed the "element by element" analysis. The CAFC said "close enough" and the world of patent attorneys just shook their heads because this completely changed case precedent. Speaking of "close enough", a lot of litigation revolves around determining not if something exactly infringes or not, but how close. A patent owner is usually allowed a "reasonable range of equivalence" so you might not spot on infringe, but close enough. If it is a pioneering patent (like the first laser patent) you get a large range of equivalence. If in a mature patent space (like automobile transmissions) you would get a very small range equivalence. Also, while this wasn't always so, you need to actively defend your patent or you will lose your rights. Almost nobody outside the patent business knows the original purpose which was to encourage innovation 1) By giving protection to the inventor and 2) By requiring the inventor to reveal what enables the patent so that others can try to IMPROVE on it. So it has always been a two-edged sword.

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4. Yes yes and yes, I hate to admit that you have to spend the money on the patents but I had a big one stolen from me in 2004 And in the middle of production during 2013 we received a cease and desist from a major manufacturer who had bought the patent rights even though we had military documentation from as far back as 1998! I’ve since learned my lesson and have two patents on the main product line as well as registered trademarks, I’ve gotten bitten there as well so as much as I hate to admit it when has to protect oneself with patents and trademarks otherwise the risk of having someone else take your great ideas is very real.

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5. I have a great idea bet I could take a patent on it: " Abolish private property!"

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6. It’s probably the Chinese trying to steal your trademarks and patents..if they even care to do that most the the time! Lol

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7. Hey Fran.. are you reading these comments on older videos? If yes.. i wonder if you are still planning on making that follow up video? Thanks anyway for your perspective.. quite eye opening

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8. I worked as a web developer for a short time contract at the US Patent and Trademark Office in Alexandria VA. I learned a lot about the patent process and made quite a few unique friends while there.

   There is a cafe (500 Dulany St building) that is publicly accessible and is usually filled with lawyers and legal counsel for the USPTO who are geeks at heart and have really advanced degrees in Engineering and Science. These people are so fascinating.

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9. Well I have an idea, and a prototype for something I made, and need to iterate the design of…. and I am afraid to do anything until I have some sort of IP. I want to make this thing, and use part of the proceeds to fund relevant charities… I already sat with a patent attorney. I feel like I am screwed if I do, and screwed if I don't

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10. How dare you withhold your tools from the public. How many deaths or heart attacks have you cause by making people work harder than they should? All along you had a gadget that would have saved countless lives and millions of dollars. How many works of art have you robbed the public of, by not sharing your art tool with the masses? You should be ashamed of yourself. Yes I watched your sawstop video and I was disgusted, but not by sawstop. p.s I have never owned a table saw.

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11. Fran, one reason some folks aren't buying the t-shirts anymore is because of the quality (or lack thereof) of the shirt itself. I bought the C-64 script shirt a while back (I bought two in fact) and the shirts were the thinnest, crappiest t-shirts I've ever seen, or more importantly, felt. I've thought about buying others you've put out but I'm not going to buy something crap just because it says Fran Lab on it. You should apply the same attitude to your t-shirt suppliers as you do to the companies that supply the parts for your pedals. Oh, you've stopped selling those as well… sigh

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12. I htink you are in an older age bracket, but I dont' care. You are cute, Fran!

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13. I did a "patent of idea" because I was told it would cover my idea. Wrong, I thought I was selling a use of it but they paid me $1500 and used it in over 5,000 locations. Boy did I learn how to waste money, lol.

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14. Im a bit appalled at most of the cynacial comments here about this subject. as a 5x (going on 6) patents it was certainly not as expensive as it was originally proposed and i was able to offload a lot of the real work due to my domain experience. First off just because you write it into a pattent doesn't always directly translate into a single product that somebody's going to rip off. Also one of the prime reasons we use Patents is provide third-party validation to the market and provide a tool to say why are we different. After building a portfolio there is a body of value. it may not be for everyone … and ill be the first on the front lines of intellectual property reform… but to wholesale dismiss is not very enlightened

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