Path: ...!weretis.net!feeder9.news.weretis.net!i2pn.org!i2pn2.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: mitchalsup@aol.com (MitchAlsup1) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: Architectural implications of locate mode I/O and channels Date: Thu, 4 Jul 2024 23:39:41 +0000 Organization: Rocksolid Light Message-ID: <457f62eb41e55887e4f71159a5ffdb2e@www.novabbs.org> References: <3d7df1c5113800b31f72d79005ae5897@www.novabbs.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Injection-Info: i2pn2.org; logging-data="2181018"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@i2pn2.org"; posting-account="65wTazMNTleAJDh/pRqmKE7ADni/0wesT78+pyiDW8A"; User-Agent: Rocksolid Light X-Rslight-Posting-User: ac58ceb75ea22753186dae54d967fed894c3dce8 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 4.0.0 X-Rslight-Site: $2y$10$Yj/Nb/0AemU3Jrhg4RmpT.7slS5fcYXCo9NvKv6E47NiHGIP/MDOG Bytes: 3126 Lines: 43 John Levine wrote: > According to Thomas Koenig : >>>>> IBM patented the 709's channel: US Patent 3,812,475 filed in 1957 but >>>>> not granted until 1974. The patent is 488 pages long including 409 >>>>> pages of figures, 130 columns of narrative text, and 91 claims. >>>>> >>>>> https://patents.google.com/patent/US3812475A/en > >>But the sheer number of claims, 91, with around than half of them >>indpendent (but quite a few formulated as "in combination", so there >>may have been some dependency to other claims hidden in there... >>must have taken the competition quite some time to figure out >>what was actually covered, and if their own designs fell under >>that patent or not. >> >>And then it was granted after ~ 20 years, and continued to be >>valid for another ~ 20 - US patent law used to be weird. > > It is unusual for a patent to take that long without either the > inventor deliberately delaying it with endless amendments or it being > classified, neither of which seems relevant here. > > You can't challenge other people for violating a patent until it's > issued, and by 1974 channels were rather old news. I never heard of > IBM enforcing it. They probably put it in the patent pool they cross > licensed to other computer makers. In general, IBM uses its patent portfolio in a defensive posture. Imagine you are the employee of xyz corporation and want to assert your newly granted patent onto IBM. IBM will simply show you that they have 400,000 current patents that they will assert back on you if you try. Most of the time, xyz corp cannot afford to even read all of IBM's patents and remain with positive cash flow. Often xuz corporation does not have enough employees to read all IBM's patents in the duration their new patent remains valid; and they certainly cannot afford to hire lawyers to do it. > "IBM's Early Computers" says almost nothing about channels other than > that they were invented for the 709 and added to the last version of > the 705.