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Message
From: "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@z...>
Date: Tue, 27 May 2003 10:34:44 -0700
Subject: Re: [oc] i386 legally
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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