Re: PR: Brinks Home Security files Civil Suit against Jim Rojas & www.tech-man.com

[Jim Rojas <jrojas@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Jim,

In regards to the user manuals : In the domain of copyrights,
abandonment is recognized as the explicit release of material by a
copyright holder into the public domain. Publishing it on the internet
for however short period of time can be considered such a release into
the public domain. Once it is in the public domain you cannot retract it.

A number of websites offer the Brinks user manuals online.

<http://www.alarmsbc.com/manuals.htm>Trade secrets - anyone may reverse
engineer a product and thus discover (and copy and publish) all of its
secrets, to the extent they are not protected by other laws

Found this interesting quote on:
http://www.alarmsbc.com/NEW1/wwwboard/messages/986.html

"BTW, the Brinks programmer is just an Arrowhead keypad that plugs into
a header on the board - there's nothing really complicated about it.
But, without the manual to go with it, it does you no good anyway. With
the programmer and manual, the system is wide open to the installer -
I've reprogrammed many Brinks 2000's and am currently monitoring several
of them. For those of you guys out there (by that, I mean installers)
that run across Brinks systems and just replace them, it may be worth
looking into getting a programmer and manual (I had to get mine from a
Brinks dealer.) If anyone's interested, I may be able to get my hands on
1 or 2 more."


Personally I believe the Brinks system looks remarkebly like a caddx
keypad. The panic buttons are almost identical to a NX series keypad and
the rest of the layout identical to a DL series keypad.

Arrowhead (USA) = Sentrol = Caddx = Moose = DAS = Scantronic (all GE owned)

Chubb used the Caddx DL series here in NZ exclusively but found that
consumer legislation required them to disclose codes and that consumers
had the right to demand an installer manual since they owned the alarm
and an alarm is effectively useless without the ability to program it.
The DL-100 was branded as the Chubb 1000 and DAS DL-100 in the
manuals.The DL-300 as the Chubb 3000. (Probably due to a bit of Subtle
pressure by the Ministry of Commerce they have abandoned "exclusive
systems".)

The units were  programmed using a  "smart  programmer". I have included
a picture of the programmer that I own for the Chubb 3000 panel with
comparison photos of the NX & brinks keypads. ( Brinks.jpg)

Of course the Brinks system is just a hybrid of other GE products and
may even involve components sold elsewhere in the world under a
different brand name. The system provides no specifically unique
features that are not already available on other systems by other
manufacturers. It is Patented for the ability to monopolize on the
product. This is a deliberate breach of the anti trust laws and is
considered Patent fraud.

Hence:           WALKER, INC. v. FOOD MACHINERY, 382  U.S. 172 (1965)

ADT through one of its Authorised dealers (Protector systems) sold the
ITI Simons panel in NZ as a "PROTECTOR ELITE". They now are replacing
consumer owned installed locked out panels at their cost. (To avoid
breaching the NZ Fair trading Act).

Hope this helps and good luck with your case.  You may want to consider
joining up with Brinks system owners and turning it into a serious multi
million dollar anti trust case.