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Message
From: Claus Høyer<choyer@c...>
Date: Thu Jan 11 23:09:58 CET 2007
Subject: [oc] CPU core patent, copyright or license issues
Hi, I am wondering how a company that uses a publicly available CPU core from
your website in an FPGA or maybe ASIC design is protected from infringing
patents or other rights of the companies that originally developed the CPU
architecture and instruction set?
I am aware of e.g. the MIPS versus Lexra case and the patented instructions
for unaligned load & store, and I have noticed how your simple MIPS I core
has special notes (disclaimers) about not implementing these specific
instructions. But does that make the core legal to use professionally?
Similarly, do you risk being sued for using e.g. one of your 8051, Z80, PIC
or AVR microcontroller cores, for which I am not aware that there are any
(non-expired) patents associated? Assuming there are no direct patent
infringements, could there still be copyright or license issues that
effectively prevent you from using such a CPU core without getting a
permission from the "owner" of the instruction set - even if we assume the
CPU core have been developed completely from scratch (ie. based only on a
public description of the instruction set/opcodes)?
I have tried to look around opencores.org for general comments on this
subject, but with no luck so far. I believe it must be a question of general
interest to anybody considering using public/open IP that implements
"industry standard" CPU instruction sets or similar cores that could be
subject to copyright or license issues.
Thanks,
Claus
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