Regarding duplication of medeco standard keys

[linty]

I've never been quite clear on this and was hoping somebody could straighten this out for me.

the patent on medeco standard keys has been expired for a long time, does that mean as far as duplication goes this is free-for all?
I know that the patent basically controls who can make and sell the blanks, so I'd assume that what is really preventing everybody from duplicating medeco standard keys is an agreement with medeco.

I heard personally from an abloy rep. that they really couldn't care if people are duplicating half-moon (classic) keys.

So what exactly are the rules regarding copying medeco standard?

[Shrub]

It is my understanding that a patent can run out but the key can remain restricted as long as the company that owns it wants it to be,

If you can get the blanks you can of course cut them but if they remain restricted you wouldnt be able to get the blanks easily anyway, but thats just my thoughts, i have no real world experiance on this subject as the keys i come across that are restricted are just that and i cant get them no matter how hard i try,

The fact that the Abloy rep said that to you wouldnt say to me that its ok as what they say and whats legally right are 2 separate things, maybe ask him for some blanks if thats what he says,

[I Pik U]

We no longer have any agreement with Medeco, as we do not do a lot of work with Medeco, as well sell more Abloy and Assa. Medeco had too many keyways out there for us to be able to service them all. Being an Abloy dealer for over 25 years, we've found we can service over 95% of Abloys we run into, but very little of the Medecos. Here in Ontario it's been buy direct from Medeco for a few years, and as we have not purchased for a long time, we've been informed we no long have an account.
We do still have two standard Medeco key machines we own, one in each store, and do cut keys without asking for registration.
Abloy classics also fall into the same catagory, and we have been told by Abloy that we can cut classic keys for customers who do not have a registration card.
We do inform our customers that their Standard Medeco and Classic Abloy keys are no longer secure, and do recommend that they upgrade if their looking to have a higher level of security.

[linty]

If you can get the blanks you can of course cut them but if they remain restricted you wouldnt be able to get the blanks easily anyway, but thats just my thoughts, i have no real world experiance on this subject as the keys i come across that are restricted are just that and i cant get them no matter how hard i try,

ilco makes medeco standard and abloy halfmoon blanks, so there's no problem getting either, the abloy classic cutting machine would be a challenge to get, although there are other ways to duplicate those keys.
once the patent runs out, there's no legal restriction against anybody making keyblanks.

we don't like to do much work with medeco, and do a lot with abloy as well, but we won't duplicate medeco standard keys. and what shrub said about the abloy rep is true, he said they didn't care anymore but he didn't say that there was no restriction anymore. technically they could take away our machine if i understand it correctly.

i also recommend upgrades to customers. the other day a guy came in asking me why on earth somebody was able to break into a store with a copy of his medeco standard key, and that's what sparked this thread.