John Hasler wrote: >> The irony here is that AMD started by reverse engineering Intel. > > Legally. Reverse-engineering is not illegal in the USA. >
>> And unfortunately the US has been protecting monopoly and fake >> competition for years. Such things as Microsoft, Apple and Google >> should not exist, not to speak of Intel, IBM and many other >> monsters. Amazon, Uber ... many many of them - it is cancer. Some >> time ago I read good article why the Patent Law should change, but I >> forgot where I found the article. The problems are in the patent law, >> as I understood the article > > Patent law certainly needs to change (I'm not sure that it should not be > entirely eliminated) but US patent law places no restrictions on reverse > engineering, decompiling, or disassembling software. US copyright law > bars bypassing of copy protection schemes, but there is actually an > exemption for reverse-engineering under some circumstances. Printer and > game manufacturers tried to use these "anti-piracy" provisions of the DMCA > to block reverse-engineering for compatibility purposes and lost in > court. > > These sorts of "licenses" are actually attempts at a civil contract. > They really have nothing to do with patent or copyright law. A civil > contract requires agreement in advance, though. So you mean after AMD reverse engineered Intel, they make it illegal for their own, by license agreement? Well here the word own is may be not exactly in place :) and this is the irony I meant. I think this is big topic and no attention and awareness in the public. IMO it is even worse than climate change. Entirely eliminate it - no, but restrict if no commercial use to 5y. Few years ago when I was reading I had the impression as long as you can pay for the patent rights you are not forced to implement/productize your patent. So the bastards are gathering tons of patents in their basements. I personally know few cases. First of all it is very expensive to protect your rights worldwide or even in the major countries and second if you are a simple person with a great idea, there is no way to make money from it. AFAIK it was different some 150y ago.
