On 7 Jun 2007 10:37:53 -0700, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (McKown, John) wrote: >Some instructions on the zSeries are patent protected. That means that >writing any code or making any hardware which has an identical effect, >regardless of how it is done, can only be legally done if the >person/company doing the emulation has a patent license. The point is >that Intel may also have patents on some of the effects of one or more >of their instructions. I will say that I think this is unlikely or Intel >would shut AMD down immediately.
Patents have served a great purpose - when the Japanese decided to modernize a century ago, one thing they praised the highest was the concept of patents. But they might be approaching the end of their useful life. Neither the laws nor the patent office have adapted successfully to our new world, and international compliance of patents and even copy rites is full of big holes. Very often it is more cost effective in the software business to use trade secrets instead of public co pyrites. We may keep them after they are obviously more costly than advantageous - but we need to be prepared for de facto changes, if not de jure changes in how we profit from our innovations and creations. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
