PROMs and Copyrights...

[Charles Brooks]

Yes the tables were arrived at by a long involved process. Just as the curve
in the distributor was arrived at after long painstaking extensive testing.
The only difference between the two is the method of achieving the curve. I
spoke with the ex-patent attorney at work. He said basically the same thing
as one of the previous posts. It all comes down to  $MONEY$ IF GM decides
that this is hurting their bottom line then they'll pursue it. He mentioned
that in 15 years of working in Patent law he had seen *4* cases that money
had not played an issue in. He stated that in almost all cases the
person/organization that won the suit was the one with the money to keep the
case in court the longest regardless of what the actual point of conflict in
design was.

Interesting, don't you think?

Charles Brooks


----- Original Message -----
From: Orin Eman <orin at wolfenet.com>
To: <diy_efi at efi332.eng.ohio-state.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, January 26, 1999 2:54 AM
Subject: Re: PROMs and Copyrights...


>
>> Actually, they are not modifying code...
>> They are modifying look-up tables.  There is no copyright or patent that
>> covers timing curves, fuel curves etc... if there was, changing the
advance
>> weights in your old distributor ignition car would have been illegal.
>
>Perhaps not for a simple curve, but the tables in ECUs are generated
>from extended testing of the engine and are not simple curves.
>