HB1810 – Requires manufacturers of digital electronic products to provide independent repair providers and owners access to the documentation, parts and tools for repairs that they make available to authorized service providers.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Gregerson (D; 33rd District; South King County) (Co-Sponsors Representative Chase – R;  Ryu, Berry, Taylor & Fitzgibbon – Ds)
Current status – Had a hearing in Appropriations January 27th. Replaced by a second substitute which would make it null and void if specific funding for it weren’t appropriated, and passed out of committee February 1st. Referred to Rules: still there at cutoff.
Next step would be – Dead bill.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Comments – SB5795 addresses many of the same issues.

History in the House –
Had a hearing in the House Committee on Consumer Protection & Business January 13th. Replaced by a substitute and passed out of committee  January 19th. The substitute would remove the option for manufacturers to provide a training program leading to certification as a “manufacturer certified repair facility” as alternative to the other fair repair requirements, and would allow independent repair providers to maintain any one of several different repair certifications.

Summary –
Starting January 1, 2023, the bill would require original manufacturers of digital electronic products sold in the state to make the same documentation, parts and tools, including corrections to embedded software and safety and security patches, that they make available to authorized repair providers available to independent repair providers on fair and reasonable terms. Manufacturers would be required to make them all available for purchase on fair and reasonable terms.

Starting January 1, 2024, it would require manufacturers to make documentation, parts, and tools, as well as any updates to the embedded software, available to owners of products for purchase on fair and reasonable terms (unless the diagnosis, maintenance, or repair of them presented a reasonably foreseeable risk of property damage or personal injury).

If manufacturers sold any documentation, parts, or tools to any independent repair provider in a format that was standardized with other original manufacturers, and on terms and conditions more favorable than those under which authorized repair providers obtained the same things, they would be prohibited from requiring authorized providers to continue purchasing those in a proprietary format, unless that included documentation or functionality that was not available in a standardized format.

Manufacturer would not be required to sell service parts that were no longer available to authorized repair providers. Equipment or parts sold or used in the state to provide security-related functions would not be allowed to exclude diagnostic, service, and repair information need to reset a security-related electronic function from the information provided to owners and independent repair facilities. The bill also says that if information necessary to reset an immobilizer system or security-related electronic module is excluded in the sub-section it “may be” obtained by owners and independent repair facilities through the appropriate secure data release systems, but there doesn’t seem to be an exclusion in the current version.

As an alternative to these obligations, manufacturers could provide a training program and allow any licensed Washington business to get certified as a “manufacturer certified repair facility” in an open and fair process.

The requirements would not apply to motor vehicles, non-road engines and equipment, or medical equipment. It would make a violation of the requirements an unfair or deceptive act in trade or commerce and an unfair method of competition under the Consumer Protection Act, but would only allow the Attorney General to enforce those provisions.