29 Jun
2001
29 Jun
'01
9:04 a.m.
At 07:53 PM 6/29/01 +0100, Iggy wrote:
Why would patents in any way be relevant? People have
emulated since the
beginning of time, regardless of patents.
In a way, that's how the PC clone business came about.
You are mistaken, implementing someone else's patent will get you sued and
you will lose and you will pay damages. Especially if the person filing
suit can prove you knew about the patent. Very little of the PC was covered
by PATENT, much was covered by COPYRIGHT, and COPYRIGHT protects an
expression of an idea, not the idea itself. So people who wrote a BIOS in a
clean room environment had a new expression of the PC BIOS and that was
something they owned, anyone who wants to implement MSCP has to license the
patent from Compaq it doesn't matter if they copy a DEC design or do one
from scratch.
--Chuck