PWM Legal Issues !?!?
VIRAND
Posts: 656
On the object exchange I saw an object as an alternative to PWM, with a hint of warning of legal issues with it.
I have A LOT of really old prior art for PWM which I am sure is legal, so please tell me why if anyone thinks it is NOT.
If someone patented it, I'm sure they'd lose a lot of money and their patent if they sued me!
Tag: PWM LEGAL ISSUE 04551.12345
I have A LOT of really old prior art for PWM which I am sure is legal, so please tell me why if anyone thinks it is NOT.
If someone patented it, I'm sure they'd lose a lot of money and their patent if they sued me!
Tag: PWM LEGAL ISSUE 04551.12345
Comments
Are you referring to the copyright and the MIT license? That's in all the objects in the Object Exchange and is intended to make it clear that you have the right to use the object in your programs. Follow the "MIT License" link on the index page of the Object Exchange for an explanation of the intention and meaning of the license.
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
propmod_us and propmod_1x1 are in stock. Only $30. PCB available for $5
Want to make projects and have Gadget Gangster sell them for you? propmod-us_ps_sd and propmod-1x1 are now available for use in your Gadget Gangster Projects.
Need to upload large images or movies for use in the forum. you can do so at uploader.propmodule.com for free.
But, take a look at Bit Angle Modulation (BAM) -- apparently this is the design approach some companies are using to get away from legal concerns.
Ken Gracey
Parallax Inc.
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Chris Savage
Parallax Engineering
50 72 6F 6A 65 63 74 20 53 69 74 65
·
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
propmod_us and propmod_1x1 are in stock. Only $30. PCB available for $5
Want to make projects and have Gadget Gangster sell them for you? propmod-us_ps_sd and propmod-1x1 are now available for use in your Gadget Gangster Projects.
Need to upload large images or movies for use in the forum. you can do so at uploader.propmodule.com for free.
I think it was challenged awhile ago and it was upheld. It's amazing what money can do...
Bean
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Does that byte of memory hold "A", 65, $41 or %01000001 ?
Yes it does...
·
Ken Gracey
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Chris Savage
Parallax Engineering
50 72 6F 6A 65 63 74 20 53 69 74 65
·
Patents like this are why the patent system is flawed.
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
propmod_us and propmod_1x1 are in stock. Only $30. PCB available for $5
Want to make projects and have Gadget Gangster sell them for you? propmod-us_ps_sd and propmod-1x1 are now available for use in your Gadget Gangster Projects.
Need to upload large images or movies for use in the forum. you can do so at uploader.propmodule.com for free.
that type of design and his patent encompassed the entire realm of spinning LED tops with PWM or some such nonsense. Oh and he also complained that the author of the article and Elektor itself had not recognized him and his company as the legal patent holders.
Elektor had a very interesting response while they were very diplomatic with their response they noted that they had no legal obligation to search for any patent information or infrinngements on printed articles that showed electronic theory and discussed how certain electronic circuits functioned ... Could you imagine if every forum or every time a company take Parallax for example had to verify and give credit to anyone holding a patent for an electronic circuit or theory it would make it very difficult for the "free" sharing of information.
One other thing and I could be wrong because I do not know how other countries apply patents, But I thought you could not patent an idea or theory of an idea I thought it was a little more involved than that?
Now, means, methods, and even PROCESSES can be patented.
The door was opened when software patents were permitted, was further opened when the slippery slope of software (being executable ideas essentially) was extended to business processes.
That was the famous "One Click" patent held by Amazon.
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Propeller Wiki: Share the coolness!
Chat in real time with other Propellerheads on IRC #propeller @ freenode.net
Safety Tip: Life is as good as YOU think it is!
Several companies in the lighting industry have tried for years and years and years to fight the patents. Literally there have been millions of dollars spent on this topic. I have to stay abreast of the issue because of both my day job and my weekend job (Brilldea). BAM is the alternative that many in the LED lighting instrument industry have used or risk being sued or risk paying CK/Philips licensing money. Artistic License in the UK has been a proponent of BAM and published the idea so that no one could patent it.
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Timothy D. Swieter, E.I.
www.brilldea.com - Prop Blade, LED Painter, RGB LEDs, 3.0" LCD Composite video display, eProto for SunSPOT
www.tdswieter.com
ROFL.
Im going to patent the universe.
Then I own EVERYTHING.
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
TERMS OF USE: MIT License
"Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any pers...........................
..............................OMITTED FOR FORUM...............................................
.................. OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE. "
The dsp/fpga king is dead, long live the prop.
I recall the Japanese did not recognise the DRAM patent (by TI ?) and when they finally granted it, the US patent had expired so production was moved from Japan. I did rather get the impression there were some politics being played out, but that's just me LOL.
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Links to other interesting threads:
· Home of the MultiBladeProps: TriBlade,·RamBlade, RetroBlade,·TwinBlade,·SixBlade, website
· Single Board Computer:·3 Propeller ICs·and a·TriBladeProp board (ZiCog Z80 Emulator)
· Prop Tools under Development or Completed (Index)
· Emulators: Micros eg Altair, and Terminals eg VT100 (Index) ZiCog (Z80) , MoCog (6809)
· Search the Propeller forums·(uses advanced Google search)
My cruising website is: ·www.bluemagic.biz·· MultiBladeProp is: www.bluemagic.biz/cluso.htm
I have plenty of pre-2001 (patent filing date) PWM LED devices many of which I've sold.
I sold a PWM RGB LED display immediately after SiC Blue LEDs appeared in the mid 1990's. (Now, bright GaN is used)
I have pre-2001 published PWM LED circuits, even such as in 1970's datasheets for LM555's.
So, if Prior Art with Working Machines no longer void patents,
the USPTO should immediately face class action charges
of fraud, extortion, racketeering, and violation of it's constitutional mandate to promote INVENTORS and INVENTIONS.
Surely, anyone who designs and sells and blinks and dims LED's would have found the LM555 or NS7400 TTL datasheets,
or the PWM chapter of the 1970 or 1980 encyclopedia of electronic circuits,
or a Radio Shack electronic kit manual, instead of licensing.
Patents only last for 20 years after filing, and Edison's idea of switching electric lights on and off expired before 1900.
And mixing colors is obviously prior art because Color TV did it since 1960.
So, nobody made and sold an RGB LED screen before I did? (1994 or 1995)
I can't remember what Times Square looked like then,
... oh wait ... there were lots of dirty movie theaters, and
there was a big TV but it used tons of weird 4-pixel CRTs and the news ticker was still light bulbs.
Hey everyone, I invented an RGB LED screen!
Jerry Garcia and a thousand others saw it at a Grateful Dead concert shortly before he died.
and for which it was made
Can I have that patent and all of it's illegitimate royalties please? (rip,rip)
I HEREBY RE-DECLARE IT TO PUBLIC DOMAIN.
Post Edited (VIRAND) : 10/4/2009 11:05:35 AM GMT
It's a joke anymore.... unless you get hauled to court that is.
But it's not funny when you are the one being sued.
Just like in court when you swear to tell the whole truth, but then the judge can decide that you CANNOT mention certain things. It's a total farce. A play being performed for the benefit of the jurors.
Bean.
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Does that byte of memory hold "A", 65, $41 or %01000001 ?
Yes it does...
·
Then the horrible reality of shady people existing in this universe hit me like a ton of bricks. That's disgusting.
In that case, I'd like to apply for a public domain patent using PRM (Pulse Ratio Modulation) that everyone in the forum can use and distribute freely through a proper MIT license.
This is ridiculas... seems as though I can get a patent on something everyone else thinks is BLUE if I happen to call it GREEN.
If you look at old text books, the reference to PWM is not used that much. However you will tend to find more references to DCM. Anyone with a brain using and applying PWM, DCM, PRM, or whatever you want to call it should know that you can apply the signal to something other than a MOTOR, LAMP, SPEAKER, etc. as it is often depicted in a "Hello World" example anyway .... Shouldn't they??? C'mon my mother can describe 50 ways the Sun can rise, but if it's cloudy the next day are you going to patent that?
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Beau Schwabe
IC Layout Engineer
Parallax, Inc.
Post Edited (Beau Schwabe (Parallax)) : 10/5/2009 4:14:40 PM GMT
Bill Gates wanted to patent double clicking the mouse but I think a judge in Europe said 'no'.
·
switching something on/off ?!?!
I guess I can patent some of the wacky and strange ideas I get (some actually pan out)
and forever after just sit on my fat *** and rake in the $$$.
I would be embarrassed to even apply for a patent on something as trivial and
obvious as PWM.
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
"Where am I? Where am I going? Why am I in a handbasket?"
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2003/0155220.html
[noparse]:)[/noparse]
·
I'm guessing patent bogusness is why some of the stuff in China is so cheap to make. Though the finished product might pay licensing fees, etc. all the means of production is protected by.... by what? What of all those manufacturing processes and such? And if there are laws on the books, who the heck really enforces them in a place like that?
What the hell are the greedy and wealthy going to do when the slaves don't need those things?
It just takes 1 invention to change the world.
TV = destroyed newspapers
Electricity = destroyed candles
Telephone = destroyed telegraphs
Car = destroyed the buggies & horse related
Replicator = will destroy every industry, and change the entire world.
And this is why you would make a poor patent attorney. I remember a story relating a family run chocolate business that had been doing their thing forever in some town. An IP firm patents a process of making chocolates and proceeds to begin attacking companies already doing so because.... well.... the USPTO says that the IP firm has 'invented' the process of making chocolate. Most of the shops caved and payed the fees but a few took it to court. I never heard the final outcome on that but I found it amazing that:
1.) The USPTO somehow believed that the later portion of the 20th century saw the invention of the process of making chocolates.
2.) Someone could, with a straight face, argue that they were the inventors of making chocolate in a year starting with '19' or '20'.
3.) That IP lawyers do not suffer death at the hands of those they are ________ over on more frequent basis.
My favorites are the patents on ideas you can't even implement yet. So basically, you run over patent the idea for the time machine in generic terms and then wait to see who actually manages to build one and sue.
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6368227.html
Ever swing from side to side on a swing Holly? Did you pay up??
While I would not say it is impossible I would not hold my breath either. The other consideration is who would make them, and how much would they cost?
As for reforming the USPTO, I will point out the following:
The majority of your elected representatives are lawyers.
Of the remainder the majority come from families of great wealth.
What do you think the chances are that they will enact any legislation or change any institution in a way that would affect their wealth, power, and privilege? They are the new aristocracy. No different than the robber barons or kings, dukes, etc of earlier times. One only has to look at the sentences given out by the courts to those few who are ever charged for their crimes.
You are right about the replicators changing everything.
(desktop assemblers)
One thing they will do is put 1 billion Chinese out of work.
The rate of tech advance is snowballing so we will see assemblers within 25yrs that
can re-create themselves from raw materials. We will see armies of nano-bots that can
build cities from the raw materials at hand. Human immortality within 50 yrs.
I'm a huge fan of Ray Kurzweil
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
"Where am I? Where am I going? Why am I in a handbasket?"