Stephan Mueller wrote:
Am Mon, 09 Aug 1999, schriebst du:
On Sun, 8 Aug 1999, James Oakley wrote:
http://www.patents.ibm.com/details?pn=US05732268__
That does *not* look good.
This patent only convers communication over network, analog modems and isdn. not a simple serial link, as i can read at ibm´s page.
On the same thread, many companies routinely patent anything that any of their employees can think of - the performance of patent clerks in the US is assessed on the number of patents approved (not the number processed).
There are vast numbers of patents registered (especially software patents) which embody ideas that are so obvious they are practically humorous - "infringements" of such patents would never stand up to legal challenge, and indeed are never likely to be challenged. Patents of this type amount to little more than scare tactics by company legal departments.
There has been much talk of disassembly on this mailing list recently, but is there *really* need for disassembly for the completion of a free BIOS? Examples of usage of practically all BIOS functions should be present in code for which source code is available, or for which textually descriptions are openly available - shouldn't it be possible to use a black box approach whilst creating a new BIOS?
I don't know the exact legal implications of using such an approach but I would imagine they are fewer, and less serious than disassembly.
Tim.
p.s. Dude, perhaps if you learn assembler, i've heard that's great.. and visit developer.intel.com ;-)
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