Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2000 02:46:28 +0000 From: Paul Richards <paul@originative.co.uk> To: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com> Cc: Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@physics.iisc.ernet.in>, Arun Sharma <adsharma@sharmas.dhs.org>, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: On "intelligent people" and "dangers to BSD" Message-ID: <38DAD704.997B6B61@originative.co.uk> References: <200003232352.QAA03123@usr08.primenet.com>
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Terry Lambert wrote: > > > > > > actually the only thing affected by the patent, in any case, > > > > > since that is Unisys' (Terry Welch's, actually) contribution. > > > > > The LZ (Lempel-Ziv) decoder will decode both, and is not patent > > > > > protected. I would have to look it up, but I'm pretty sure > > > > > that patent has expired, unless it was submerged (filed but not > > > > > executed) prior to GIF images becoming common on the net. At > > > > > > > > I think I read that it's supposed to expire in 2003. > > > > > > Try 1999: > > > > > > http://www.patents.ibm.com/details?pn=US04558302__ > > > > Isn't the lifetime of a patent 20 years from date of filing? The > > above page says it was filed in June 1983. > > It is 14 years from date of issue for patents filed before the > new patent law took effect. There are still plenty of submerged > patents out there which were filed before the cut-off date, when > the new rules went into effect. They will remain submerged until > they are executed. Think of them as "trained attack patents". > > Patents filed after the cut-off date are 20 years from date of > filing, regardless of date of issue. > > The reason this is so is that the US has a Constitutional > premise that something which is not illegal can not be made > illegal. This is called "ipos facto"; a loose translation > is "a law after the fact". This is why you can own short > barrelled shotguns in the US, so long as they were made > before the law making them "illegal" went into effect. > > The consequences of not having this legal premise codified in > the Constitution would be the ability to: > > 1) Dislike something that happened > 2) Get elected > 3) Pass a law making it illegal > 4) Arresting the original person who did the thing you > didn't like, and trying them under the new law > > In one word: tyranny. This happens all the time in the UK these days. You'd be amazed what suddenly becomes illegal all of a sudden, one of the most farcical was a law banning the consumption of T-bone steaks. Paul. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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