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Dead G4 transmitter wanted

B

bleemster

Member
Messages
12
Has anyone got a dead G4 they are willing to donate to me instead of throwing in the bin please. Would love to reverse engineer this and have the chineese build me a replica transmitter that fits the housing that we could change the batteries. But its what I do for a living in general and am currently using the trial G4 which has to go back :(

please message me in any method.
i will donate a working prototype back to the donatee
 
@bleemster, if that's what you want to do with it, I suggest you fork out the £260 for the transmitter and ensure you have a large amount of money set aside to deal with the ensuing lawsuit that will follow from Dexcom. There is a large amount of IP tied up into this and you'll rapidly have lawyers serving you a writ for copyright and patent infringement. Hope you've got deep pockets...
 
lol no i design components etc as research and dev. for a well known company. All companies purchase other companies technology to see 'how it works'.

This would be very simple to do. but not a problem only wanted to help. I think the illegal side would be to 'sell' or profit from a modified patented product. Under consumer law, what I do with my own product (as long as its not for gain) I can do what I want with. Exactly the same reason it is completely legal to jail break an iPhone etc.

I think the only patent it would infringe is if they panted a 'shape'. IE being the shape of the transmitter. If i print a device on our 3D printer that fits the unit, i'm not sure if that would be breaking any patent. But then again if the shape was modified slightly which happened to 'clip' into said unit that would be fine.

Anyway, as this is a completely purchased product, and the sole ownership of the consumer, if you want to drill holes in it, paint it yellow and make it look like cheese you can. But you cant sell it :)

Thats ALSO why you do not own your virgin or sky box after 12 months anymore. They rent the equipment to you. So its illegal to drill holes or paint it ANY colour.

:-/
PS.
This is only a light-hearted idea to save some money like these horrendous bodge/hack jobs ive seen floating about on the internet. But i have much better tools at my disposal and some spare time
 
I haven't done any IP law for quite a long time. But, I would be concerned about this for the following reasons:

1) you talked in the opening post about "building a replica" which is different to simply modifying an existing thing & building a replica will probably inherently infringe on several IP rights
2) I'm not convinced you have to make a profit to infringe a patent - isn't it more about whether you damage the patent holders profit? If you offer a service out of the goodness of your heart to adapt every dexcom transmitter to take batteries that is going to undermine their profit.

It does sound like an interesting project and more power to you if you manage to do it, but you would be safer doing it just for yourself. Dexcom are unlikely to be shy about enforcing their IP rights if they were to feel in anyway threatened.

I would imagine the shape of the transmitter is trademarked...
 
@catapillar you are completely correct if it does damage profits. But we had a case about two years ago and is incredibly difficult to prove what "could have" been earned or a definitive loss of earnings. By replica i meant 'body modification'

I dont want to sell or mass produce anything at all. I merely want to make one for me and would be willing to make one for the person who donated one.
 
Also, if you are doing it at work/using your work's facilities you might want to be cautious that you have your employers' consent & they are as confident as you that your project won't be opening them up to any IP infringement suit. It sounds like you know this, but don't be risking your job for a project...
 
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