Re: Patent
H. Peter Anvin (hpa@transmeta.com)
3 Nov 1999 21:21:18 GMT
Followup to: <Pine.LNX.3.95.991103083544.16191A-100000@chaos.analogic.com>
By author: "Richard B. Johnson" <root@chaos.analogic.com>
In newsgroup: linux.dev.kernel
>
> If anybody's interested, I can provide source-code, dated in the first
> part of this decade (1991), that uses the obvious "windowing" mechanism
> to set the century byte of the CMOS chip. This is used in the Analogic
> 2030 arbitrary function generator. I wrote the BIOS. This source-code
> is proprietary, however, to support a petition against MD, it could
> certainly be referenced and possibly forced into evidence if a complaint
> ever went that far.
>
> Just because a patent was issued, it does not mean it's valid. If the
> patent holder is informed that your use predates his, and it becomes
> obvious that there was prior art not cited in the application, the
> patent holder will usually issue an "unrestricted license" so that
> nobody has to show patent validity or otherwise.
>
Actually, the windowing approach was used in PC-DOS 2.0 (1981-or-so):
if you enter a two-digit date it is mapped on the 1980-2079 window.
-hpa
--
<hpa@transmeta.com> at work, <hpa@zytor.com> in private!
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