represents the U.S. consumer technology industry; George Borlase, research staff member at the Institute for Defense Analyses Science and Technology Policy Institute; Jennifer Larson, the CEO of Vibrant Technologies, an Eden Prairie, Minnesota-based remarketer of IT hardware; and Theresa McDonough, the owner of Tech Medic, a mobile phone and computer repair shop located in Middlebury, Vermont.
The second panel examined the arguments for and against providing consumers and independent repair shops with the parts, tools and diagnostic software needed to repair products. This panel featured two security experts—Earl Crane, a security advisor with the Security Innovation Center and Gary McGraw, a security researcher with Securerepairs.org, an organization of information (“cyber”) security professionals who support the right to repair. Panelists also included Gay Gordon-Byrne, the executive director of The Repair Association, an association that represents people involved in repair and reuse of technology, and George Kerchner, the executive director of PRBA—The Rechargeable Battery Association (“PRBA”), a trade association that represents the rechargeable power industry.
The final panel explored proposed state legislation and industry initiatives aimed at expanding consumers’ repair choices. Panelists included: Aaron Lowe, senior vice president for regulatory and government affairs at the Auto Care Association, a trade association representing businesses that manufacture, distribute and sell motor vehicle parts, accessories, tools, equipment, materials and supplies, and perform vehicle service, maintenance and repair; two state senators who have sponsored fair repair legislation in their states—the Honorable David Osmek (a Republican state Senator from Minnesota) and the Honorable Chris Pearson (a Progressive Party state Senator from Vermont); Kyle Wiens, the co-founder and CEO of iFixit, operator of ifixit.com, a wiki-based site that teaches people how to fix products and sells repair parts; and Sarah Faye Pierce, the director of government relations at the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers.
This report is primarily based on the record we developed using the information gathering tools described above.
In this section we describe manufacturer practices that right to repair advocates assert have the effect of limiting consumer repair choices. In Section V, we evaluate manufacturers’ explanations for these restrictions. Repair restrictions discussed at the Workshop, described in the empirical research submissions, and delineated in the comments generally fall into eight categories:
- Physical restrictions;
- Unavailability of parts, repair manuals, and diagnostic software and tools;
- Designs that make independent repairs less safe;
- Telematics (i.e., information on the operation and status of a vehicle that is collected by a system contained in the vehicle and wirelessly relayed to a central location, often the manufacturer or dealer of the vehicle);
- Application of patent rights and enforcement of trademarks;
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