Hi,

I have been searching in the mailing list archives for patents and how
they apply to logic cores. John Dalton did some interesting comparison
back in 2003 about the meaning of patents in the US and Australia.

What I am looking for, and did not find an answer in the archive is, how
do patents apply to the development of logic cores? Let's say I
implement an algorithm as explained and claimed by a national patent. Is
the design of that algorithm in HDL a patent infringement or is the
implementation of the HDL on a FPGA or ASIC the patent infringement?

Now to the national issue. I guess an infringement only applies to a
country where the patent is issued from. So in case of a national
patent, if that patent has not been issued in any other country, I would
be able to implement the algorithm and use it in all other countries,
except for the one country the patent has been issued from, without
causing an infringement?

How does that apply to opencores now? As the server is placed in one
country would it be possible to implement algorithms and post them on
opencores that are protected by a national patent, not issued in the
country the server is placed at?

I guess due to the mirror server that exist it would require to consider
patents issued in each country a mirror server is placed?

Thanks for anyone shedding some light on this topic.

Cheers,

Guenter

In most places, it's not infringing on a patent if it's for personal use, so you can build it in an FPGA without issue. In the USA, just making a device for personal use can be considered infringing, but it is highly unlikely of a law suite. Most likely case would be a cease and desist letter, and have to take files off of web sites, etc... I am not a lawyer, but I would suspect that building a FPGA or ASCIC wouldn't be a problem for a company as a proof of concept test, but any issue (royalty payments, etc...) should be worked out first with the patent holder, or at a minimum prior to any advertising, selling, etc... I would suspect it depends on the language of the patent if writing the algorithm in HDL would be infringing, or making an FPGA would be. -----Original Message----- From: cores-bounces at opencores.org [mailto:cores-bounces at opencores.org] On Behalf Of Günter Dannoritzer Sent: Saturday, September 29, 2007 8:55 AM To: Discussion list about free open source IP cores Subject: [oc] patents and logic cores Hi, I have been searching in the mailing list archives for patents and how they apply to logic cores. John Dalton did some interesting comparison back in 2003 about the meaning of patents in the US and Australia. What I am looking for, and did not find an answer in the archive is, how do patents apply to the development of logic cores? Let's say I implement an algorithm as explained and claimed by a national patent. Is the design of that algorithm in HDL a patent infringement or is the implementation of the HDL on a FPGA or ASIC the patent infringement? Now to the national issue. I guess an infringement only applies to a country where the patent is issued from. So in case of a national patent, if that patent has not been issued in any other country, I would be able to implement the algorithm and use it in all other countries, except for the one country the patent has been issued from, without causing an infringement? How does that apply to opencores now? As the server is placed in one country would it be possible to implement algorithms and post them on opencores that are protected by a national patent, not issued in the country the server is placed at? I guess due to the mirror server that exist it would require to consider patents issued in each country a mirror server is placed? Thanks for anyone shedding some light on this topic. Cheers, Guenter _______________________________________________ http://www.opencores.org/mailman/listinfo/cores

Hi Guenter, I don't know the answer to the legal technicalities you are asking, but I would recommend you stay away from pattent protected stuff. Any lawsuit will bring you lots of headaches and financial harm even if your action is not necesarily illegal. Thanks ----- Original Message ----- From: Günter Dannoritzerdannoritzer at w...> To: Date: Sat Sep 29 14:54:38 CEST 2007 Subject: [oc] patents and logic cores

You need to step back a bit. What is a patent?

Historically, individuals who made commercially-significant discoveries
would keep them secret, since this was the only way to protect them.
This wasn't in the interests of the state, who needed a mechanism to
ensure disclosure.

The modern patent dates from 17th-century England. It was an agreement
between the inventor and the government: the inventor provided written
full disclosure and, in return, the government granted the inventor a
limited-period monopoly on the commercial exploitation of that
invention. Of course, the British government had no way of granting a
monopoly in any other country, and the same remains true today, for all
national governments. The inventor therefore had (and still has) to make
a choice: was it better to provide disclosure in return for the limited
monopoly, or was it better to keep the invention secret, which might
give a better long-term return, particularly in international markets?

The situation is exactly the same today. Different national governments
have different standards for what constitutes an 'invention' (in the US,
for example, you can get a patent on a perpetual motion machine, among
many other other absurd things), but national law still does not, and
cannot, extend across national frontiers. If you want to patent an
'invention', you first start by finding out where your markets are, and
then you take out national patents in those markets. Some countries may
allow a monopoly for an 'international' patent of some sort (a European
patent, for example); that's a decision that is made by the government
of that country.

Back to your questions:

1 - the location of a 'server', whatever that is, can make no
difference. All that matters is commercial exploitation. Note that, if
you give something away for free in a territory in which a patent-holder
has a commerical monopoly right, then they clearly have a case against
you, but only in that territory.

2 - Knowledge is free, and is not protected by most governments (not by
patent, anyway). Those that do protect knowledge protect it by the
threat or use of violence (of course, that's the only way that any
government can actually govern, but that's a different matter). Again,
all that matters (for a patent) is commercial exploitation.

3 - 'Algorithms' cannot be patented in many countries; certainly not the
UK, probably nowhere in Europe. It may be possible to patent an
'algorithm' in the US; I don't know and don't care (I suspect that it
is, given the RSA encryption patent [using algorithms which,
incidentally, had already long been developed and used by the British]).

4 - If it's not already obvious, and to elmininate any confusion: you
can do anything you want with the information contained in a national
patent but, if you infringe the inventor's monopoly rights in that
country, you may end up in a court in that country, if you let them
catch you.

Thanks Richard for that great explanation.

Richard Tierney wrote:
[...]
This is were I feel it is getting hairy. To figure out what does really apply to my case. I give you an example. I am looking for a pipelined FFT processor for my opencores project. Doing a google search the first hit is this paper: http://ipdps.cc.gatech.edu/1996/PAPERS/S19/HE/HE.PDF It really explains the processor well and also is a very efficient in terms of FPGA usage. Now guess what, it is protected by a US patent and doing a search on the EPO page it has a EPO publication number assigned and is registered with the World IP Organization. Now I know that in Europe algorithms cannot really be patented so far and me living in Germany the US patent would not really affect me. But with all this motion at the moment about the intellectual property laws getting unified all over Europe I am a bit unsure what all this other stuff with the world IP organization has to do with it.

Yes, that is where I thought the server location would come in. For
example, if the server is hosted in the US, the company could forbid to
publish the project because of the patent law in that country, where as
when the server would be in another country, US law would not really
have an influence on it.

[...]



And this is were it becomes complicated with opencores, as a project is
public available. So it becomes important to check first before causing
some violation.

So there are actually two ways to look at it from an opencores
development project. One is from the developers point of view. What laws
are valid for the developer or the team of developers.

The other question is what laws would apply to a user of that project.

I guess it is not the task of the developers on opencores to verify all
national laws and whether their implementation would violent one of them.

So what is the recommendation here? I guess for a development team,
check that your national laws are met?

tkafafi at hotmail.com wrote:

I would agree with you, but it seems like if people have patent
something, they tend to be more open with spreading the word about their
work. So for someone trying to learn something new, there might be a
point to look into a patented work.

I have no interest in any commercial use of it. For me it is just a
learning experience, but also would like to share it on opencores. That
is where the legal issues comes in.

Lauro, John wrote:
Now that brings up an interesting point. I remember a couple of years back ShengYu Shen did an ARM core project and got in trouble: http://www.opencores.org/projects.cgi/web/nnARM/overview I don't recall what he violated in detail. Anyhow, it seems like he never went on with development, but now there are two more ARM core projects on opencores, that seem not to have those problems? Or did the company just got tiered of pursuing them? Now I don't know where ShengYu is living that the company had the power to put that pressure on him. But obviously they must have had a case so that he took off his project. This drifts now off a bit, but looking at opencores, then there are more MIPS based processor projects than ARM based ones. I know there a several books available that teach Computer architecture based on the MIPS processor, but the ARM is also very well documented and especially popular. So I wonder why is it that so many MIPS projects are published and not ARM ones? Is the ARM company just more eager keeping those projects off or are there more patents on the ARM than on the MIPS? If I remember right there were some instructions on the MIPS that were patented until last year and people kept them out of the published projects.

It is my understanding that in regards to a National patent, the actual building of the algorithm in HDL is considered infringment, especially if you then post it for open access with the intent to earn income off of the design. It is true that for personal use, any one individual can use a patent, but this does not apply to companies. Now in regards to National Patents, technically speaking, if you do not sell the patent in a country where the patent is protected it is difficult for the patent owner to pursue you and in some cases, it is virtually impossible (China) to protect a patent. But today, many national patents are also immediately filed as an international patent and under International patent law, even if the national patent is not granted at the time you use it, the application time period for international patent applies. Thus you can find that after the fact of going to a country where a National patent does not exist you can be held responsible for utilizing a known patent if it fell under international patent protection. Please note, this is my understanding from our patent lawyers. You are better off using a GPL or similiar type of licensed core. Even Libraries can be protected and do to the large number of commerce treaties between the US and other countries a US patent is typically protected in countries even if a National patent had not been issued. I hate to say it, but the legal issue of open source VHDL code has gotten many innovators into financial trouble. Texasjohn ----- Original Message ----- From: Lauro, Johnjlauro at u...> To: Date: Mon Oct 1 02:46:53 CEST 2007 Subject: [oc] patents and logic cores

Hi all ! When someone owns a patent on something, his only right is to prevent you from selling or making commercial use of what is protected by the patent, in the countries where the patent applies. This mean you can use it for personal investigation, learning, publish derived work for free on the internet (the patent itself is already considered a publication) You can also provide source HDL code that implements the patent protected stuff on the internet, even in the country where the national patent has been issued. But you cannot sell anything that uses the patent or any derived work that's covered by the patent in a country where the patent applies. Then when you look at this: http://www.opencores.org/projects.cgi/web/nnARM/overview you can feel like you're infringing the patent. You shouldn't. As long as you do no commercial use of the patent protected stuff. Keep in mind that when you buy an IP from the IP owner, you do not buy the HDL code in itself, but the right to sell products with the IP included. You buy the right to make commercial use of the patented stuff. So If you do publish your HDL on the opencore.org site it will be legal, others will have the right to implement it in FPGA for themselves, but no one will have the right to sell anything made using this HDL code. that's it. Then, for US patents in the USA... I do not know if you can or cannot implement the HDL in an FPGA for yourself if the HDL is patented. But who would know ? One last thing: A patent gives the patent owner the right to prevent you from selling (or distributing hardware for free, which is still commercial use) patented work, but they or not bound to do it. They can leave this right unused. It would be so much better for the whole world. Have fun. Hope I'm right and this will be usefull. +++ ----- Original Message ----- From: tkafafi at hotmail.comtkafafi at h...> To: Date: Mon Oct 1 04:49:04 CEST 2007 Subject: [oc] patents and logic cores

* Günter Dannoritzer dannoritzer at web.de> wrote: That's not entirely true. Clearly, Par.52 EPA clearly declares program code as not patentable, we have to suffer on thousands over thousands of software patents. And seems to be impossible to hold the perps in EPO and politics responsible for thei damage they did and continue to do to our IT industry. (you probably know which dirty role especially our Secretary of Justice plays in that game and what threat her actions are to our democratic society are ;-o). This is the point where science becomes political (-> Faust case) :( As long as you've got no direct commercial interest, I suggest ignoring the patents threat for your works, but instead *fight* on the political front line. The FFII provided material is a good starting point: -> http://www.ffii.org/

Well, the word "unification" IMHO is faar too harmless. I'd prefer the
German word "Gleichschaltung" (perhaps "equilibrium" is an adequate
translation), which has an special meaning in our country.



Yes, that is where I thought the server location would come in. For
example, if the server is hosted in the US, the company could forbid to
publish the project because of the patent law in that country, where as
when the server would be in another country, US law would not really
have an influence on it.

My 2cents on the whole problem; I dived in deep and this is my personal opinion ... The original idea behind the patent system is not bad; it provides protection for the initial developer and opens their invention for improvements by others. This provided a way for a developer to open the R&D to others so others could improve the idea, while still protecting the invention. So simply copying the idea would be illegal. However lately (especially in the US) the patent system has turned into a cash cow. Simply forgetting the "improvements by others" and only using the "protection" part. Nowadays the patent holder with the most cash (i.e. can survive in court the longest) wins. This is *NOT* what patents are about. The entire patent system (especially in the US) has gotten so opaque that even big companies cannot handle it anymore; evidence the many patent infringement court cases. Also the "improvement by others" part is completely ignored. In my opinion this limits development. We all want (open) standards to ensure interoperability. No closed, proprietary systems anymore. But this inherently means we need to use some 'technology' that has been patented by somebody somewhere. The European take on patents is more in line with the original idea, although multinationals are gaining in their push for a more US like approach. Fortunately in Europe you still need a touchable device to patent. So an idea cannot be patented, neither is software (which is not touchable). An algorithm cannot be patented either, unless you implement it in a device. The patent then covers "A device to ....". A patent only holds for commercial activities in the country where a patent is valid. This means if you develop a device that contains technology that is patented in the US and you make sure that no part of your device ever touches US soil then you can safely sell the device (but not in the US). Obviously the original US patent holder wont like you anymore and, if you make enough money, might use political pressure against you. However as long as you don’t sell oil you should be safe from invading forces :p As said before, patents hold for commercial activities. You are allowed to develop the code which is patented. You are even allowed to publish it (it is already publish in the patent anyways). Anybody can take your code an look at it. This is all legal, but might not be appreciated by the original patent holder. If somebody takes your code for implementation in a commercial device then it's that person's responsibility to handle any patent/licensing issues/fees. For example the I2C code on OpenCores can safely be downloaded and used by anybody. However if you implement it in a commercial device you have to contact Philips to discuss licensing fees (for as long as the original patent is valid). Now political pressure can be applied even without patents. For example ARM holds a patent on the THUMB instruction set architecture. This means you could safely implement an ARM, as long as you leave out the THUMB instructions (and other parts that might be patented). However even here money talks ... ARM successfully pressured organizations (including OpenCores) to remove any implementations of ARM processors, even though it is legal to make and publish these implementations. It simply boils down to who holds up in court the longest. Finally some thoughts on the current patent law system. Technology companies want to relax the patent laws, returning to the original idea of "improvements by others" instead of "protection", because any device nowadays inherently violates some patent one way or another and it is impossible to check all patents. So that means a company releases a product and then has to wait until it gets sued to figure out whether or not it violated a patent. And with the ridiculous damage claims and awards this can break a company. On the other hand medical companies want much stricter patent laws, because their product is covered by one (or only a few) patents, so it is much easier to check. Funny enough the most important cases are willingly violated, for example AIDS medicine which is ridiculously expensive due to the high licensing costs. So countries violate the patent to generate generic versions of the drugs in the name of public health protection (which makes perfect sense to me). Another weird results of the current system ... The Human Genome Project made an effort to identify and list the entire human genome system. There's 1 US company that identified the gene that causes increased risk of breast cancer a few days before the Human Genome Project did. They applied for a patent and got it... How can you get a patent on my genes??? Ok, they got a patent for the identification of that particular gene, but still it's my gene. Anyways now the medicine to check for increased risk of breast cancer is 1000 times more expensive than it would have been otherwise, simply because that company now charges licensing fees. So is the current patent system an improvement for humanity? No way, it's a way to make companies rich, but doesn't care about the people. Which fits in the current UCA (United Corporations of America) political climate. Again my personal views, based on real life facts. Richard -----Original Message----- From: cores-bounces at opencores.org [mailto:cores-bounces at opencores.org] On Behalf Of Enrico Weigelt Sent: 17 April 2008 22:27 To: Discussion list about free open source IP cores Subject: Re: [oc] patents and logic cores * Günter Dannoritzer dannoritzer at web.de> wrote: That's not entirely true. Clearly, Par.52 EPA clearly declares program code as not patentable, we have to suffer on thousands over thousands of software patents. And seems to be impossible to hold the perps in EPO and politics responsible for thei damage they did and continue to do to our IT industry. (you probably know which dirty role especially our Secretary of Justice plays in that game and what threat her actions are to our democratic society are ;-o). This is the point where science becomes political (-> Faust case) :( As long as you've got no direct commercial interest, I suggest ignoring the patents threat for your works, but instead *fight* on the political front line. The FFII provided material is a good starting point: -> http://www.ffii.org/

Well, the word "unification" IMHO is faar too harmless. I'd prefer the
German word "Gleichschaltung" (perhaps "equilibrium" is an adequate
translation), which has an special meaning in our country.



Yes, that is where I thought the server location would come in. For
example, if the server is hosted in the US, the company could forbid to
publish the project because of the patent law in that country, where as
when the server would be in another country, US law would not really
have an influence on it.

At 08:37 AM 4/18/2008, Richard Herveille wrote:


I think the original patent (of 1987) expired in 2005, I think if you
check the NXP website you will find some new rule. This also helps
explain why there are now so many more I2C bus devices hitting the
market and why I2C is becoming ubiquitous in micros of various types.

John

The European patent expired before the US patent. I2C was already widely used before the patents expired, so I wouldn't suggest it is more abundant now than it was then. I simply used this as an example, don't put too much weight on it. Richard -----Original Message----- From: cores-bounces at opencores.org [mailto:cores-bounces at opencores.org] On Behalf Of John Day Sent: 21 April 2008 22:36 To: Discussion list about free open source IP cores; weigelt at metux.de; 'Discussion list about free open source IP cores' Subject: RE: [oc] patents and logic cores At 08:37 AM 4/18/2008, Richard Herveille wrote: I think the original patent (of 1987) expired in 2005, I think if you check the NXP website you will find some new rule. This also helps explain why there are now so many more I2C bus devices hitting the market and why I2C is becoming ubiquitous in micros of various types. John _______________________________________________ http://www.opencores.org/mailman/listinfo/cores

* Richard Herveille richard at herveille.net> wrote: Hi,

that's long, long time ago ...
BTW: the *original* meaning of patents, IMHO, was the right to
piracy in the name of the crown - that actually fits the current
situation very well.



Right, so even several courts (IMHO) are trying to limit patentability.



Or to get rid of the whole patent system.



Even worse, much worse: they try to implement an *unlimited* patent system
which judges directly coming from within the patent office. In fact, this
is a major break with the primary principle of separation of powers, so
anti-constitutional in practically all EU states.



Couldn't be more far from truth: the EPA has granted ten-thousands of pure
software patents. Of course in direct violation of the legal situation.
Instead of correcting their mistakes, they're working very hard on
"adapting the legal situation to the current practise" - in other words:
try to legalize their illegal actions. It took us a hard fight to stop
at least the worst parts in the EP.

In fact, the whole EU is totally anti-constitutional, and lots of people
already already pressed criminal charges on high treason against lot's
of politicians.



I wouldn't counton that ...



No, at least not in the EU. Publishing the code already means an infrignment,
since you allow other people to use the so called "invention" and so hurt
the patent holder's commericial interests.



If the patent claims the instruction set itself (not just an specific
implementation), it already is an software patent. Such patents claims
don't have anything to do with invention protection, but just are weapons
for legal wars.



ACK. Even totally illegal patents are good weapons for those who have enough
money to file a suit.



IMHO, you mixed up "relax" and "strict". An "relaxed" patent system (as
currently in installation process in the institutionalized criminility
called "EU") means: you can claim more and more things ...

But: it's interesting to see that the people who're actually doing innovation
are gainst universal patentability.



They even want patents on purely natural things, eg. genomes.
Perhaps you'll someday have to pay license fes, just because you're born ;-o



Yep, otherwise these countries would to genocide.

In those cases, I think it's perfectly legal for people who are about to die of cancer because they can't pay the patented medicine, to kill the responsible folks. cu -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Enrico Weigelt == metux IT service - http://www.metux.de/ --------------------------------------------------------------------- Please visit the OpenSource QM Taskforce: http://wiki.metux.de/public/OpenSource_QM_Taskforce Patches / Fixes for a lot dozens of packages in dozens of versions: http://patches.metux.de/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------