Re: [oc] i386 legally

["H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com>]

Niclas Hedhman wrote:
> 
>>b) Patents are valid until 20 years after date of file, *or* 17 years
>>after date of issue (in the U.S. only and only for patents filed before
>>some time in the late '90s.)
> 
> Ohh. I thought it was 25 years. Nevertheless, 17years after issue, is another 
> interesting part, since many patents take years from filing to issuance, the 
> IC for instance was ~2 decades.
> 

Yes, the IC was an example of a so-called "submarine" patent -- where a 
company abuses delays in the filing system to actively encourage the 
competition to infringe, and then "surfacing" with a patent.  It was one 
of the patents that caused the U.S. to switch to the date of file-based 
system, which most other countries already used.

	-hpa


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