Alle 10:54, venerd� 19 marzo 2004, Tapani Tarvainen ha scritto: > On Fri, Mar 19, 2004 at 11:39:37AM +0000, danilo ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: > > > maybe there is no agreement and it is al about backward ingeneering. > > > Like all third party lenses. Canon will never share it's technology, > > > like a software company would never share it's source code to a > > > compatitor (IMHO) > > > > But all of this stuff are patent protected, can they reverse-engineer > > them without infringe any (copy)right? > > Copyright should not be a problem there but patents can be. > However, it could be that key patents on EF mount have just > expired - the first EF lenses were introduced in 1987, > and at the time patents were granted for 17 years, > if I remember right.
Sorry, I meant patent, I'm not involved in legal stuff ;) 17 years or whatever it is, you are right: it will come to an end with time, but they can, however, re-patent it, I think... But I can remember one ilarious thing, some years ago, the patent on the logo of a French (IIRC) right-wing political party was expired and they don't re-acquire it suddenly. Instead a left-wing satiric magazine did it, and they produced an hygienical paper with the logo printed on it. <lol> Ciao Danilo. * **** ******* *********************************************************** * For list instructions, including unsubscribe, see: * http://www.a1.nl/phomepag/markerink/eos_list.htm ***********************************************************
