RE: [oc] Legal projects that can be worked on.

[Vladimir Dergachev <volodya@mindspring.com>]

On Mon, 24 Dec 2001, Sam Gladstone wrote:

> Here is my take on patents.
> 
> Well, with patents in the US system, it is allowed for a
> person to study and implement a solution based on someone else's patent.
> With the condition that if you sell the item, then you get a license for the
> patent.
> The patent holder is not required to sell you a license and therefore can
> stop you from selling the implementation.
> Patents were built to share technology for a price, a limited monopoly.

Is it "sell" or "distribute" ? This is a fine point that is
important. 

                      Vladimir Dergachev

> 
> This is to our advantage as Opencores is a non profit group and
> does not sell anything for a profit.
> 
> As long as you don't intend to sell the implementation, then you can
> "research"
> the idea as much as you want.  It would even be good to know if you ran into
> a patented idea so that the OC group could try to invent around the patent,
> release
> the idea to which this would count as prior art preventing further
> patenting.
> 
> What I want know is what is Copyrightable in the design world? Instruction
> sets?
> Signal names? Specs? Not sure how much protection a company can exert on
> their
> product or spec.
> 
> Regards,
>   Sam Gladstone
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-cores@opencores.org [mailto:owner-cores@opencores.org]On
> Behalf Of Philipp Krause
> Sent: Monday, December 24, 2001 4:11 AM
> To: cores@opencores.org
> Subject: Re: [oc] Legal projects that can be worked on.
> 
> 
> Sam Gladstone wrote:
> 
> >I completely agree!
> >If we know what is legal and what areas are not, then
> >the group can be more focused on the right things.
> >
> How should we deal with different nation's laws? There are countries
> that don't
> have a DCMA equivalent yet. Some companys hold patents only valid in their
> home countries.
> 
> Philipp Krause
> 
> >
> 
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