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The information on Groklaw is not intended to constitute legal advice. While Mark is a lawyer and he has asked other lawyers and law students to contribute articles, all of these articles are offered to help educate, not to provide specific legal advice. They are not your lawyers.

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Come on, you can do better than that | 756 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Also FPGAs.
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, July 19 2012 @ 03:20 PM EDT
FPGA

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Does Programming a Computer Make A New Machine?~By PolR
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, July 19 2012 @ 03:23 PM EDT
Or back in the day when programming a computer was done by jumpering wires
between connectors, thereby making a special-purpose computer to solve one and
only one problem.

Thankfully today, our computers are capable of running hundreds if not thousands
of programs simultaneously to get as many jobs done.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Does Programming a Computer Make A New Machine?~By PolR
Authored by: alisonken1 on Thursday, July 19 2012 @ 03:36 PM EDT
To program one of those means literally burning the fuses permanently. Creating a "new machine" in the process.

Actually, you're not making a "new machine" when burning the links, you're actually defining the proper paths for the algorithm that you want the device to accomplish. For example, you can't burn new paths that aren't already there, only existing possible paths that were placed there already.

It is similar to "programming" the GAL to become a special-purpose machine with the exception that once the paths are burned, they cannot be changed - but the lawyers would make a case that it is a "new machine" based on their legal theory.

---
- Ken -
import std_disclaimer.py
Registered Linux user^W^WJohn Doe #296561
Slackin' since 1993
http://www.slackware.com

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Come on, you can do better than that
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, July 20 2012 @ 04:11 AM EDT
GALs are usually erasable. Does that mean that the circuits you implement using
them are no longer patentable because the process is reversible?

Does it become patentable when you solder them in rather than place them in a
socket?

This can't be the criterion.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Does Programming a Computer Make A New Machine?~By PolR
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, July 24 2012 @ 02:12 PM EDT
Actually, it does nothing of the sort. If you understood reconfigurable logic,
it doesn't make a new machine (They do that when you cut new silicon...)- it
makes a machine with the same behaviors as a PLUGBOARD. All you're doing is
re-wiring the same circuits in differing patterns.

Now...what is patentable is dependent on what you DO with said plugboard...but
it doesn't make a new machine in and of itself.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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