Customer Provides Third Party Drawings

runninwideopen · Sep 29, 2021

Hi guys,

I'm sure I'm not the only job shop this comes up at. A customer provides drawings with third party, copyrighted, proprietary drawings and asks you to make it. How do you respond? What if it's a new customer? What if it's a long time existing customer?

BoxcarPete · Sep 29, 2021

Are they true manufacturing drawings? That's pretty rare in my experience, I mostly see people handing out dumbed-down prints to their customers to avoid this very thing.

That said, we often receive third party, (unconfirmed if proprietary) sample parts and asked to make them and do so.

Another possibility, is the customer a big-ish place? It's possible that the "third party" is a separate division of the company or a recently acquired subsidiary whose prints have not been updated to match the rest.

crazygoat · Sep 29, 2021

Maybe the customer bought out the original company? I would ask, though I have done it before when the customer comes up with a reasonable explanation.

CITIZEN F16 · Sep 29, 2021

crazygoat said:
Maybe the customer bought out the original company? I would ask, though I have done it before when the customer comes up with a reasonable explanation.

As said above, an explanation is necessary. How old is the drawing? Are we looking at a one off or large quantities?
It could be as simple as a part is no longer manufactured by the original copyright or patent holder or that company is no longer in business.

chuckg7442 · Sep 29, 2021

runninwideopen said:
Hi guys,

I'm sure I'm not the only job shop this comes up at. A customer provides drawings with third party, copyrighted, proprietary drawings and asks you to make it. How do you respond? What if it's a new customer? What if it's a long time existing customer?

I think it depends on the customer, the job and your company. I know at my company, we build dies. Nothing is really top secret, like a government job(the real one, not side work). We have had dies designed by a third party company who makes them to the customers specs. If we, or our customer had a policy or issue with third party drawings, that would be talked about with new customers and old customers would already have a policy in place. If both companies are on the same page, I don't see that being an issue.

CITIZEN F16 · Sep 29, 2021

chuckg7442 said:
I think it depends on the customer, the job and your company. I know at my company, we build dies. Nothing is really top secret, like a government job(the real one, not side work). We have had dies designed by a third party company who makes them to the customers specs. If we, or our customer had a policy or issue with third party drawings, that would be talked about with new customers and old customers would already have a policy in place. If both companies are on the same page, I don't see that being an issue.

I think you missed the point, he said it had a copyright.

BoxcarPete · Sep 29, 2021

CITIZEN F16 said:
I think you missed the point, he said it had a copyright.

All drawings say that. Even if we make a drawing for a standard o-ring in a standard material so the customer can have a verifiable record that they're getting the right one, it will still say "this print is loaned on a confidential basis... blah blah blah" because that's part of the titleblock.

chuckg7442 · Sep 29, 2021

CITIZEN F16 said:
I think you missed the point, he said it had a copyright.

If both companies come to an agreement, what is the problem? Perhaps I am assuming that the customer is in ownership of the part design and not outsourcing the job for another company? I am just curious as to what I could be missing. I'm trying to expand my thinking.

Conrad Hoffman · Sep 29, 2021

Seems like bad practice. We don't reveal our customers and would redraw any customer supplied drawing before sending it out for fabrication. I'd want some explanation in writing that establishes rights or ownership, signed by an officer of the company, before proceeding.

CITIZEN F16 · Sep 29, 2021

chuckg7442 said:
If both companies come to an agreement, what is the problem? Perhaps I am assuming that the customer is in ownership of the part design and not outsourcing the job for another company? I am just curious as to what I could be missing. I'm trying to expand my thinking.

I was thinking it could be possible the customer who sent the print possibly does not own the right to have the part produced.

chuckg7442 · Sep 29, 2021

CITIZEN F16 said:
I was thinking it could be possible the customer who sent the print possibly does not own the right to have the part produced.

I understand that, I assumed that was ok. I was thinking that if company A was quoting a job with company B, that company A would be allowed to do so, otherwise they wouldn't be contacting company B. That and if their company policies allowed for it, there shouldn't be a problem. I do have much to learn in life.

Mark P. · Sep 29, 2021

runninwideopen said:
Hi guys,

I'm sure I'm not the only job shop this comes up at. A customer provides drawings with third party, copyrighted, proprietary drawings and asks you to make it. How do you respond? What if it's a new customer? What if it's a long time existing customer?

I know a guy that worked for a certain type of machine manufacturer and then proceeded to use such prints from that company to start his own company manufacturing a similar type machine. We had done work for that company before and were asked to destroy any such prints. Got messy.

SeymourDumore · Sep 29, 2021

I don't know about your situation or customers, but as a 3rd tier job shop, approx 90% of my supplied drawings or models are of a third party source.
All of them are proprietary, not to be disclosed, copied, blah blah blah.
I signed a non disclosure agreement with my customers and that's it.

So, from my perspective such things are always on the up and up.

CITIZEN F16 · Sep 29, 2021

CITIZEN F16 said:
I was thinking it could be possible the customer who sent the print possibly does not own the right to have the part produced.

chuckg7442 said:
I understand that, I assumed that was ok. I was thinking that if company A was quoting a job with company B, that company A would be allowed to do so, otherwise they wouldn't be contacting company B. That and if their company policies allowed for it, there shouldn't be a problem. I do have much to learn in life.

I think the older we become the more cynical we get, I lean toward not trusting someone until I get to know them, especially someone who is trying to sell me something. Ages ago I had a friend of a customer who made a good living knocking off patented products in a certain industry, changing them just enough to not infringe on the patent and get sued. He asked me how much I would charge him for consulting on the manufacturing processes and costs on a big stack of patent drawings, where he was thinking of branching out into other product lines. I not so politely told him to go F**k himself.

Hillside Fab · Sep 29, 2021

SeymourDumore said:
I don't know about your situation or customers, but as a 3rd tier job shop, approx 90% of my supplied drawings or models are of a third party source.
All of them are proprietary, not to be disclosed, copied, blah blah blah.
I signed a non disclosure agreement with my customers and that's it.

So, from my perspective such things are always on the up and up.

Yep this is normal here also. At least for industrial machinery and tooling.

Bill D · Sep 29, 2021

I have read here that some machine makers no longer supply parts for older lathes etc. But they will give you the drawing so you can make a replacement part. I think Leblond does this for 50 year old machines.
Bill D

Hillside Fab · Sep 29, 2021

Bill D said:
I have read here that some machine makers no longer supply parts for older lathes etc. But they will give you the drawing so you can make a replacement part. I think Leblond does this for 50 year old machines.
Bill D

A 50yr old leblond would fall into industrial machinery but thats not what I had in mind. Molds, pumps, presses, custom machines, etc. New(ish) stuff.

chuckg7442 · Sep 30, 2021

CITIZEN F16 said:
I think the older we become the more cynical we get, I lean toward not trusting someone until I get to know them, especially someone who is trying to sell me something. Ages ago I had a friend of a customer who made a good living knocking off patented products in a certain industry, changing them just enough to not infringe on the patent and get sued. He asked me how much I would charge him for consulting on the manufacturing processes and costs on a big stack of patent drawings, where he was thinking of branching out into other product lines. I not so politely told him to go F**k himself.

Then I must be an old man trapped in a middle age body. I trust nobody. I was talking about proprietary drawings with a coworker yesterday too. I assume it something to give the owners legal grounds if their design is stolen. I imagine they would have to prove it, but having something proprietary would give them some legal teeth.

Mcgyver · Sep 30, 2021

Why is this even an issue? Anyone spend their days questioning a customers right to have a part made?

copyright means you can't legally copy the drawing. It imposes no restrictions on building whats on the drawing, that would be a patent. A copyright happens the second you write or create something. Even if it were a patent making the parts means bugger all, e.g. perhaps the guy asking has licensed the patent.

There are lots of ways this could happen that is legit. I regularly take on jobs and outsource portions of it - you might get my customers drawings then. Or I license a product, I get drawings with someone else's name on it, I buy a business, I own all the drawings with someone else name on it. On and on.

Bottom line is there are umpteen ways it could be legit but even if not, you have zero ability or responsibility to ascertain whether the customer has a right to have a part made, at least as it relates to intellectual property

Sam L · Sep 30, 2021

One of my bigger customers gives us OEM prints all the time.
It is a condition of their purchase that they get a full set of manufacturing drawings.

Sam

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