I've been making some funny observations lately, and I thought I would share. It is funny how Intel tries to keep of things secret, but on the same hand they go crazy patenting everything they get their hands on. I bet if you add up a the companies by patent, Intel would win by far. Anyways I find this funny because patents are public records. Very dry reading but helps alot. Lately I have been finding more info on patents than datasheets. How sad is that.
Anyways I have discovered through patents the correct way to calculate the Buffer Strength on Intel i8xx chipsets. Patch is coming soon.
Beware.. Question : if we (open source users/developpers) are using some information obtained from patents (not the complete patent but just some information as is the case here..), are we exposing to lawsuits of "patent infringement" if the patent holder is not open source friendly? Just my 2 euro-cents.. Florentin
Quoting Joseph Smith joe@settoplinux.org:
I've been making some funny observations lately, and I thought I would share. It is funny how Intel tries to keep of things secret, but on the same hand they go crazy patenting everything they get their hands on. I bet if you add up a the companies by patent, Intel would win by far. Anyways I find this funny because patents are public records. Very dry reading but helps alot. Lately I have been finding more info on patents than datasheets. How sad is that.
Anyways I have discovered through patents the correct way to calculate the Buffer Strength on Intel i8xx chipsets. Patch is coming soon.
-- Thanks, Joseph Smith Set-Top-Linux www.settoplinux.org
-- coreboot mailing list: coreboot@coreboot.org http://www.coreboot.org/mailman/listinfo/coreboot
On Fri, 19 Jun 2009 10:24:51 +0200, Florentin Demetrescu echelon@free.fr wrote:
Beware.. Question : if we (open source users/developpers) are using some information obtained from patents (not the complete patent but just some information as is the case here..), are we exposing to lawsuits of "patent infringement" if the patent holder is not open source friendly? Just my 2 euro-cents..
I don't thinks so, patent claims are public information. No one had to sign a NDA. It is not software and does not have copyrighted code it just explains how a harware process works. As long as we are NOT claiming to have invented the hardware process, that there is a patent on, it is ok.
Anyone with a legal back ground want to touch this?
Also if someone with legal background can answer, I would like to put another question (maybe very obvious to some of you, but I send it anyway.. :-)) : - what is the status of "reverse engineering" in USA/EU nowadays? More specifically, in the context of the project coreboot, can we use information obtained reversing proprietary bioses/drivers (or even hardware.. :o)) safely or we risk unleashing hordes of IP lawyers on us?..
Florentin
PS: I know that this is shamelessly practiced in the (big) corporate world, but we (as "underdogs"..) can we dare?..
Quoting Joseph Smith joe@settoplinux.org:
On Fri, 19 Jun 2009 10:24:51 +0200, Florentin Demetrescu echelon@free.fr wrote:
Beware.. Question : if we (open source users/developpers) are using some information obtained from patents (not the complete patent but just some information as is the case here..), are we exposing to lawsuits of "patent infringement" if the patent holder is not open source friendly? Just my 2 euro-cents..
I don't thinks so, patent claims are public information. No one had to sign a NDA. It is not software and does not have copyrighted code it just explains how a harware process works. As long as we are NOT claiming to have invented the hardware process, that there is a patent on, it is ok.
Anyone with a legal back ground want to touch this?
-- Thanks, Joseph Smith Set-Top-Linux www.settoplinux.org
-- coreboot mailing list: coreboot@coreboot.org http://www.coreboot.org/mailman/listinfo/coreboot
On Fri, 19 Jun 2009 01:08:38 -0400, Joseph Smith joe@settoplinux.org wrote:
I've been making some funny observations lately, and I thought I would share. It is funny how Intel tries to keep of things secret, but on the same hand they go crazy patenting everything they get their hands on. I bet if you add up a the companies by patent, Intel would win by far. Anyways
I
find this funny because patents are public records. Very dry reading but helps alot. Lately I have been finding more info on patents than datasheets. How sad is that.
Anyways I have discovered through patents the correct way to calculate
the
Buffer Strength on Intel i8xx chipsets. Patch is coming soon.
Hmm, the patent I was looking at does not cover the full Buffer Strength process, it just simply mentions it.
-
Florentin Demetrescu -
Joseph Smith