Patent Attorney's Counsel ... We Be FINE

[steve ravet]

Gianotorio at pilgrimhouse.com wrote:

> (5) Lastly, as I introduced the questions about what if any restrictions
> there would be to taking apart/dismantling one of these thingees I own,
> I said, "well, what I'm getting at is, just exactly when does the
> Reverse Engineering thing come into play". And the patent attorney
> chuckled for a moment, and said, "Well, reverse engineering is
> considered a PROPER activity! [HAH!] "This a widespread lay
> misconception, that there's anything wrong with reverse engineering.
> It's what you DO with the information that may cause infringement". It's
> just that regardless of HOW you find out what's inside, and THAT you ARE
> free to do, you still can't use the information like it's now your own,
> as if digging it out of epoxy gave you some intellectual property rights
> to it, as a reward for your "hard work". Hee.

The AMD 386 chip was made by delaminating a bunch of intel chips layer
by layer, photographing the whole thing thru a microscope, and entering
the whole schematic by hand.  Then simulating it, with no idea what
circuits did what.

--steve


--
Steve Ravet
International Meta Systems
http://www.imes.com
steve at imes.com