The 1998 Washington Seminar
CAPTION: President Maurer
holds up the $50,000 check just presented by Mel Smith, Human Relations Manager, Baltimore
District, United Parcel Service
The 1998 Washington
Seminar
by Barbara Pierce
As usual, this year's Washington Seminar started
with a bang several days ahead of the opening briefing with workshops and committee
meetings at both the Holiday Inn, Capitol, our headquarters for the week, and the National
The Verdict
The Verdict
THE CLERK: I will review the verdict
with you and ask for your responses. As to the federal copyright infringement
claim, question 1. Did the plaintiff Independent Living Aids prove that it
changed the product listing from its non-copyrighted catalogs, so that the
listing as changed in the copyrighted catalogs were removed from the public
domain and were original and protected? THE FOREPERSON: Yes.
THE CLERK: Question two.
Did the plaintiff ILA prove that it is
A Question of Character
A Question of
Character
Setting aside, if that is possible, the
formidable body of evidence of Maxi-Aids' shoddy business practice amassed
during this trial, there is an interesting and significant collection of statements
that shed light on the characters of the people involved. For example, Milton
Kaye, who worked at various times for the American Foundation for the Blind,
Vis-Aids, and ILA developing and designing catalogs, offered two interesting
The Department of Veterans Affairs Bids
The Department
of Veterans Affairs Bids
One of the subjects of inquiry during
the trial was Maxi-Aids' efforts to strengthen its hand in the bidding process
conducted by the Department of Veterans Affairs. In 1993 the Maxi-Aids bid
on a number of items came in indicating that the vendor was a woman-owned company,
which gave it an advantage. The next year it announced that it was minority-owned.
The Voice Print Telephone
The Voice
Print Telephone
Then there was the Voice Print telephone.
ILA, according to Sandler's testimony, sold one model of this item for $199.95.
Maxi-Aids sold the other model for $149.95. Fifty telephone numbers could be
programmed into the Maxi-Aids version and 100 numbers into the ILA model so
that the user could speak a name and have the phone dial that number. The equipment
was voice-activated. The importer discontinued carrying this product in the
The Tab Grabber
The Tab
Grabber
A recurring theme throughout the trial
was the Maxi-Aids practice of advertising one product and substituting another
for it. The tab grabber is a case in point. Marvin Sandler describes this small
tool as an aid to opening soft-drink cans using a slot on one end and opening
bottles using a fluted hole at the other. Sandler says that it is helpful to
people with arthritis and to those like airline cabin personnel who have lots
Watches
Watches
From the beginning one of Marvin Sandler's
biggest complaints against Maxi-Aids concerned Braille and low-vision watches.
The Maxi-Aids catalog through the second half of the eighties included pictures
of ILA watches, most of which conspicuously included the ILA logo. Sandler
argued that this indicated that Maxi-Aids was using a competitor's photos and
then undercutting its prices. Elliot Zaretsky explained, however implausibly,
The Copyright Question
The Copyright
Question
According to Marvin Sandler's
testimony, Independent Living Aids was started in 1977 as one of several companies
owned by the Sandler family. In April of 1987 he and his wife actually bought
ILA from the family and actively took over its management themselves. His wife
held 60 percent of the stock, and he held the rest and acted as president.
In February, before this transfer, the ILA catalogs of several of the Sandler
The Jury Comes Down Hard on Maxi-Aids
Summary
and Brief Excerpts from the Trial
by Barbara Pierce
Note: As background for this article,
Monitor readers may wish to review the article entitled "Was it Swiss
or Hong Kong: The Story of Maxi-Aids," which appeared in the December,
1994, issue of the Braille Monitor.
On November 5, 1997, a jury of four men
and five women filed into a United States District courtroom to hear the case
A Note from the Editor
A Special Note from the Editor
Barbara Pierce
Occasionally in the blindness
field a circumstance so extraordinary arises that it demands unusual treatment
in these pages. The recent U.S. District Court decision in the Eastern District
of New York in the case of Independent Living Aids versus Maxi-Aids is such
an instance. The entire March issue is, therefore, devoted to telling the story
of this case as it unfolded. We have tried to do so chiefly in the actual words