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Rockbox mail archiveSubject: RE: Rockbox Intellectual Property questionRE: Rockbox Intellectual Property question
From: Ofir Carny <Ofir_at_vidius.co.il>
Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 09:33:44 +0300 IANAL: Are you sure about this? IIRC, it would only render the patent (or parts thereof) invalid. Usually not even that, because a separate motion is required to invalidate/change a patent/claim other than what is required to prove prior art for your own use. However, if you apply to a patent first then you are probably correct (but prior art is not sufficient, you need a patent application). Also note that there is a deadline for applying for a patent, counted from the first publication (I think it is one year up to the final application). At least in the case of US law, a patent can (and usually does) apply to a specific domain, so the fact that there are speaking elevators (or talking accessibility features) should not prevent applying to a patent for the domain of portable music players. regards, Ofir -----Original Message----- From: Matthew P. OReilly [mailto:moreilly_at_moreilly.com] Sent: Wednesday, May 21, 2003 2:24 AM To: rockbox_at_cool.haxx.se Subject: RE: Rockbox Intellectual Property question IANAL either, --BUT-- AFAIK/IIRC, with regard to US law, if someone patents something, then that patent is challenged (and won) in court, the patent and all royalties from that patent are automatically applied to the author/owner of the prior art. I think that perhaps proving that they got the idea from you would be part of this, but I'm not sure. Matt -----Original Message----- From: owner-rockbox_at_cool.haxx.se [mailto:owner-rockbox_at_cool.haxx.se]On Behalf Of Jonah, Jim Sent: Tuesday, May 20, 2003 3:26 PM To: 'rockbox_at_cool.haxx.se' Subject: RE: Rockbox Intellectual Property question IANAL, Since you've "published" the work it's now prior art. The question is, will the patent office find this work when they do the search? Based on the patents they are issuing they are not doing a good job of searching. The best way to protect it is the file for a Patent (defensively) yourself. You can always assign stewardship of the patent to an organization such as EFF, etc. and a declare it for free for use in open source projects. You could also do a dual license - free for open source, pay for non-open source, non-free usage. You could have the revenues go to your favorite Open Source organization to fund pro-open source lobbyists (which, sad to say, will be required in the near future, I fear). Even when prior art exists many companies just won't spend the 500k or more it takes to fight it in court. So I wouldn't count on prior art protecting your excellent idea. Jim (My personal opinions - they may or may not my employers opinions) ********************************************************************** This email and attachments have been scanned for potential proprietary or sensitive information leakage. Vidius, Inc. Protecting Your Information from the Inside Out. www.vidius.com ********************************************************************** Received on 2003-05-21 Page template was last modified "Tue Sep 7 00:00:02 2021" The Rockbox Crew -- Privacy Policy |