Draft RESNET Standard now open for public comment

[John McKenna]

Originally Posted by rmaday

Understood.

So do you perform IR scans in a different way that the patent holder?

That is an excellent defense. It would be better if one did not have to go to court to prove that.

And if leaders in industry would simply file the paperwork to have this patent invalidated, this conversation would be moot.

If you or anyone else claims that I am doing something wrong,
then show me. I am open to hear you explain it.

If industry leaders don't do IR, like the patent states, it is a
non-issue to them. If someone says the patent applies industry
wide and in all cases, then that is a bogus claim.

[Nick Gromicko]

So do you perform IR scans in a different way that the patent holder?

That is an excellent defense. It would be better if one did not have to go to court to prove that.

Burden of proof is suffered by the plaintiff in a civil case.

[rmaday]

Originally Posted by jmckenna1

If you or anyone else claims that I am doing something wrong,
then show me. I am open to hear you explain it.

That's the thing, John. if you were brought to court for infringment it is up to YOU to prove you are not.

[rmaday]

Originally Posted by gromicko

Burden of proof is suffered by the plaintiff in a civil case.

I believe it is reversed in patent cases.

[Nick Gromicko]

A Patent is a funny thing. It has to be general enough to cover ground, but specific enough to hold that ground.

[John McKenna]

I don't know what to defend until I am accused? Tell me what I am
doing wrong. Quote the patent if you like.

[James H. Bushart]

Originally Posted by prussell

Read the post again Einstein, the insurance company would not pay until they received my report. It was the insurance company that needed proof not me.

Wow.....I wonder how people proved their walls were wet from falling trees resulting from severe weather before IR technology.

[John McKenna]

Originally Posted by jbushart

Wow.....I wonder how people proved their walls were wet from falling trees resulting from severe weather before IR technology.

There are a lot of people who call in a thermographers, in order
to discover more extensive water damage than what
is seen by a visual inspection. Happens all the time.

I wonder how many crimes have been solved by the use
of forensic tools, that were not available in time past?

[Jason Kaylor]

Originally Posted by jbushart

Wow.....I wonder how people proved their walls were wet from falling trees resulting from severe weather before IR technology.

I think you are missing the point James. Many insurance companies are utilizing IR for not only proof but to deny claims.

Service Master and Servpro locations often use IR just for that purpose. We sell a ton of Service Masters their cameras. They know how to find moisture, and damage. They brought on IR because the insurance company always wanted to argue damages. Now with IR they simply take before and after IR pictures, and there is basically nothing for the IR company to argue.

I run an IR inspection business in Phoenix, and we get several calls a month from industrial type settings because the insurance company is now asking these companies to get anywhere from monthly to annual inspections on switch gear, machines, motors, pumps, electrical systems, and the list goes on.

One of the best leads that most IR companies do not go after are the insurance companies. There was another thread elsewhere on here about applications and how to market IR. I threw in several ideas, two of which were insurance companies and trucking companies. Think outside of the box and IR is extremely profitable.

I went to high school from 87-91 and compiled a ton of cassette tapes. When the CD player came out I waited forever to get one. At least 4 years after they came out I finally bought a CD player. I stuck with VHS for the same exact reason. My daughter had almost every Disney movie out, at the time, on VHS. Many years after DVD players came out I finally bought one, and do not even own a VHS unit now a days.

If there is one constant in human evolution it is that technology advances and takes over. All the naysayers get ran over and passed by.

So grab your flashlight and go to work John Henry, but don't be shocked in another 10 years when an XRF/IR/Nuclear/camera hybrid type of device comes out and makes it so you can do a home inspection without leaving your truck, or better yet the google truck is equiped with the device and you can do your inspection from your home office.

Jason Kaylor – JJ
VP of Specialty Products
877/207-1244
AC Tool Supply
Fluke Thermal Cameras
Testo Infrared Cameras
HotShot Hi-Rez Infrared Cameras
Fluke TiR1 Resources
Retrotec Duct & Blower Door

[James H. Bushart]

Originally Posted by gromicko

A Patent is a funny thing. It has to be general enough to cover ground, but specific enough to hold that ground.

Like an SOP.

[James H. Bushart]

Originally Posted by jkaylor

I think you are missing the point James. Many insurance companies are utilizing IR for not only proof but to deny claims.

Service Master and Servpro locations often use IR just for that purpose. We sell a ton of Service Masters their cameras. They know how to find moisture, and damage. They brought on IR because the insurance company always wanted to argue damages. Now with IR they simply take before and after IR pictures, and there is basically nothing for the IR company to argue.

I run an IR inspection business in Phoenix, and we get several calls a month from industrial type settings because the insurance company is now asking these companies to get anywhere from monthly to annual inspections on switch gear, machines, motors, pumps, electrical systems, and the list goes on.

One of the best leads that most IR companies do not go after are the insurance companies. There was another thread elsewhere on here about applications and how to market IR. I threw in several ideas, two of which were insurance companies and trucking companies. Think outside of the box and IR is extremely profitable.

I went to high school from 87-91 and compiled a ton of cassette tapes. When the CD player came out I waited forever to get one. At least 4 years after they came out I finally bought a CD player. I stuck with VHS for the same exact reason. My daughter had almost every Disney movie out, at the time, on VHS. Many years after DVD players came out I finally bought one, and do not even own a VHS unit now a days.

If there is one constant in human evolution it is that technology advances and takes over. All the naysayers get ran over and passed by.

Jason Kaylor – JJ
VP of Specialty Products
877/207-1244
AC Tool Supply
Fluke Thermal Cameras
Testo Infrared Cameras
HotShot Hi-Rez Infrared Cameras
Fluke TiR1 Resources
Retrotec Duct & Blower Door

You certainly have a market for insurance claims investigations for which, I suppose, their are no patent infringements being considered.

Home inspections, however, appear to be different. As you sell your devices to home inspectors, do you warn them that there is a patented protocol that they must not follow without paying for that right?

[Chris Mayes]

John S,

It would have been nice if you could have gained some insight from the members of this board. Now you know where not to post the new standards.

If you like, you can post the IR standard updates where they'll certainly be appreciated by energy auditors, BPI, RESNET, HERS & LEED Contractors: www.energyauditortalk.org

Chris Mayes
AC Tool Supply, Inc.
www.energyauditortalk.org

[Peter C. Russell]

Originally Posted by jbushart

Wow.....I wonder how people proved their walls were wet from falling trees resulting from severe weather before IR technology.

Yea, and people use to use morse code to communicate, what's our point?

[Jason Kaylor]

Originally Posted by jbushart

You certainly have a market for insurance claims investigations for which, I suppose, their are no patent infringements being considered.

Home inspections, however, appear to be different. As you sell your devices to home inspectors, do you warn them that there is a patented protocol that they must not follow without paying for that right?

We don't really sell a lot of home inspectors. We do sell a lot of energy auditors, which use blower doors and other devices which the patent does not refer to. Even then we really do not sell a lot of the sub 10k cameras. We focus mainly on industrial and commercial type of customers (for both camera sales and inspections). The Fluke TiR4 is one of our biggest movers along with the Fluke Ti55.

HI's, fortunately or unfortunately, are heavily marketed by all manufactures and the lower end cameras are really pushed upon HI's. Where manufactures kind of messed up in their marketing is that most HI's also do other types of inspections and often come from a construction background. HI's get stuck in the rut where they are going to use infrared for their current HI business, mainly because the manufactures market that. Where in reality the real money in infrared is commercial, industrial and flat roof inspections. No camera below 15k is really set up for that type of application, 50k for a used or refurbished short wave (flat roof inspections).

Don't misread that. Infrared can be, and is another revenue stream for HI's. However, it is just one tiny piece of the infrared pie. This Resnet proposal is yet another potential revenue stream, but for some reason the respondants to this thread (some excluded) do not seem to get it.

Jason Kaylor – JJ
VP of Specialty Products
877/207-1244
AC Tool Supply
Fluke Thermal Cameras
Testo Infrared Cameras
HotShot Hi-Rez Infrared Cameras
Fluke TiR1 Resources
Retrotec Duct & Blower Door

[Jason Kaylor]

Not to hijack this thread, oh wait nevermind, what is Resnet?

After reading that patent, my take on it is as long as you don't use any device to manipulte the temperature of the residential structure to and above or below 10F of ambient temp, you are fine. It also states sloped roofs. So flat roofs, commercial and industrial is fine (which I said in my previous post is more profitable anyway)

It also states using light switches in the structure to put a load on the electrical system (what about all the other breakers, lol) so I wouldn't do that either. Personally I wouldn't use light switches to create a load anyway. There is plenty of professional test and measurement equipment out there to put an accurate load on the electrical system.

I am not sure if it was talking about turning on the blower motors to create negative pressure, positive pressure, or just more load on the electrical system. Maybe a combination of negative/positive pressure and electrical. That part was unclear to me. Once again I wouldn't use blower motors to load the electrical system. If it is used to create pressure, stack effect is probably greater than the pressure it creates anyway. Take a manometer and get a baseline of the structure with everything closed and turned off (blower motors). Turn the blower motors on and find out what the pressure is then. I would be completly shocked it if it was more than 2-3pa difference.

With all that said, I am agreeance with a couple of the posters in this thread that it is still a patent. And until someone challenges that and gets it dropped HomeSafe could potentially pursue it.

I also agree that they will mainly go after smaller entities that are less likely to want to shell out potentially 10's of thousands of dollars. Even if those smaller entities win, they lose due to the expenses of litigation. Whatever the royality fees are, I guarantee they are cheaper than an attorney in a trial situation.

Unfortunately, like others have said, big entities (for whatever reason) have not taken any action to get this revoked. So we have a stalemate. HomeSafe won't go after the big boys cause they know they would get crushed, and the big boys are just not motivated for some reason.

Jason Kaylor – JJ
VP of Specialty Products
877/207-1244
AC Tool Supply
Fluke Thermal Cameras
Testo Infrared Cameras
HotShot Hi-Rez Infrared Cameras
Fluke TiR1 Resources
Retrotec Duct & Blower Door