From: Patent Tactics, George Brock-Nannestad


Jim,

this is the second well-argued and lengthy installment from you in this 
matter. However, you almost contradict the first when you write so much of 
what you can get second-hand on eBay:

> 
------------------------------------------------------------- You see doing
> things like this can get one into a whole world of pain = just to save $300
> - which is about the price of a decent used lab grade oven on Ebay - and to
> be fair I am including shipping. There are several on Ebay right now that
> look quite serviceable for $200. I just looked and there are 776 lab ovens
> available on Ebay right now - some are environmental chambers with vacuum
> chambers and all sorts of fancy stuff, but the vast majority are perfectly
> suitable Blue M and Fisher Scientific Ovens that are lab devices that will
> give repeatable results with precision for tiny money.
> 

In the first sage installment you very sensibly argued _against_ buying 
second-hand, because of outgassing, so potentially all the 776 lab ovens 
could suffer from this. One way to reduce the risk with an unknown oven is to 
run it for 24 hours at maximum temperature, sniffing the atmosphere and 
putting Oddy test tablets inside.

You wrote:

> Considering that I am the guy that did specify the ovens for The Library of
> Congress - yes I did specify lab grade ovens and for good reason. 

----- well, taken at face value all it says is that this was your proposal, 
and it may have been taken. It does not say whether it had to compete with 
other approaches.

There is no doubt that clients have greater belief in the service that can 
demonstrate the most expensive equipment - that has been the case throughout 
history. 

Kind regards,


George