By Nathan Proctor
It wasn’t long ago that every product we bought came with the expectation that we could fix it. They came with full-service manuals by default, and spare parts were standardized and widely available.
For decades, it’s been getting harder and harder to fix products, as manufacturers have restricted access to what they used to share without reservation: the parts, tools and information used by technicians to do the repairs.
That’s why I’m pushing for Right to Repair reforms across the country, across a wide variety of industries, from toasters to tractors, cameras to computed tomography (CT) scanners. While there are huge differences between how things are fixed at a hospital and a farm, the barriers manufacturers use to control the repair process are similar, and so are the arguments they use to block access.
And, Right to Repair has struck a nerve.
People have noticed that it’s so hard to fix things, they remember when it wasn’t such a hassle, and they want fixable things again. Our model Right to Repair reforms simply require manufacturers to share the repair parts, tools and information they use themselves.
So far this year, 30 states have introduced or carried over legislation, including many which include medical devices.
Here are some recent highlights.
On March 27, Gov. Tina Kotek signed Oregon’s Right to Repair bill into law, making Oregon the fourth state to enact Right to Repair rules for consumer electronics, including appliances, laptops and cellphones. Oregon’s bill is the first in the nation to ban manufacturers from using software to prevent technicians from fully installing spare parts, a practice called “parts pairing.”
Parts pairing is a big barrier to repair in many industries and something that happens in medical devices as well. Parts pairing is when the device recognizes the individual components within a device by coding them with a unique identifier (usually a serial number). When the parts change, the device detects it, and can restrict functions, display misleading warnings about unauthorized components, or otherwise frustrate the user.
Colorado lawmakers have passed Right to Repair legislation in each of the last two sessions – a bill to protect wheelchair users’ Right to Repair in 2022, followed by a Right to Repair for farmers bill last year. This year they are back with a broad Right to Repair bill covering personal and business electronics – which passed out of the House in March, and out of the Senate in April. It waits for final concurrence, and then it will head to the governor.
In a new front for Right to Repair, Missouri lawmakers have introduced the first Right to Repair bill specific to motorcycles, which was advanced out of committee. The Motorcycles Riders Foundation and other groups support the measure.
For the latest information, visit pirg.org/campaigns/right-to-repair.
