Hallo, Paul Winkler hat gesagt: // Paul Winkler wrote: > On Wed, Sep 24, 2003 at 05:36:59PM +0200, Frank Barknecht wrote: > > I suppose you wouldn't be allowed to control one oscillator's > > frequency with the output of another oscillator using more than about > > 10 Hz because that is Frequency Modulation and Yamaha has a patent on > > that. But I'm no lawyer. > > Oh that's just absurd. What are they going to do?
I should have added a :) smiley, because this was intended to be absurd or to show, how absurd software patents can get. Everyone I guess knows that Amazon patented the "On-Click" method. I wanted to say that those things exist in music software, too. Maybe FM synthesis is not a good example, because this technique is actually more complex than Amazon's. > Sue John Chowning who claims to have invented FM audio synthesis > way back in the 70s? I now did a bit more research on that and I was a bit wrong: The patent is Standford's and Yamaha is a licensee. Also this patent seems to have expired 1995. But not without achieving this: "Stanford's FM synthesis patent, which expired two years ago, was the second biggest money maker in campus history. It brought in more than $20 million." (http://www.stanford.edu/dept/news/report/news/july16/sondiusxg.html) I think, several Waveguide patents also developed at Stanford are still valid. Also the documentation of Perry Cooks STK says: "The basic Chowning/Stanford FM patent expired in 1995, but there exist follow-on patents, mostly assigned to Yamaha. If you are of the type who should worry about this (making money) worry away." > Sue every radio station in the world? I think, the patent only covered the use of FM in a musical instrument. ciao -- Frank Barknecht _ ______footils.org__
