Patent violations?!

[Dave Halliday]

It was a loong time ago but I seem to remember an interview with the person
who "invented" the Aphex device and it came about because they were
assembling a kit amplifier and made a mistake somewhere.  They liked the
sound and proceeded to have someone figure out what was happening and they
made a business out of it.



-----Original Message-----
From: Peter Snow [mailto:psnow at magma.ca]
Sent: Thursday, May 11, 2000 2:48 PM
To: Jules Ryckebusch
Cc: synth-diy at node12b53.a2000.nl
Subject: Re: Patent violations?!


Hi Jules,

Yes, I remember that article and the ensuing letters in EM.  As far as I
can remember Aphex went even further and claimed that anyone using that
device to record a song would be liable to pay them royalties on every
sale of that song!  Heavy stuff.  But I think some legal type wrote in
and said they were full of kaka and the whole thing died, right? Makes
you wonder how Aphex could justify charging what they did for their
product if it was so close to your circuit. That was a nice, simple,
elegant circuit too. It's still on my list to build, along with your
PAIA compressor. Arrrgh I wish I had more time!

Cheers,

Peter

Jules Ryckebusch wrote:
> 
> I published the "build a ten dollar harmonic sweetener" in Electronic
Musician in
> 1987. Technically it close enough to the Aphex Aural Exicter that they
claimed it
> violated there patent(s). The only thing they could claim was that it
could not
> be used commercially. They actually claimed that it could not be used for
a
> commercial recording too. I was not in any legal trouble as I was just
publicly
> showing how to do something, not commercial production.
> 
> Jules Ryckebusch
> 
> WeAreAs1 at aol.com wrote:
> 
> > In a message dated 5/11/00 8:47:11 AM, you wrote:
> >
> > <<And would I be allowed to publish a circuit to which patent rights are
> >
> > still active? >>
> >
> > I think it's OK to publish your derivative circuit.  After all, the
original
> > patent is in its own way a very public disclosure of the idea.  The
original
> > inventor takes a certain amount of risk by patenting, because the
process
> > actually exposes his idea to a lot more people than if he had just gone
ahead
> > and put his idea directly to commercial use without patenting, but kept
the
> > details secret.  This, indeed, is one of the several reasons Don
Lancaster is
> > so vehemently opposed to the use of patents (in most cases).  Anyway, as
long
> > as you aren't trying to make money with the derivative, I don't think
you can
> > get in trouble for telling people how you did it.  Keep in mind,
however,
> > that I learned everything I know about the law from watching Ally
Mcbeal,
> > Matlock, a shop-worn videotape of To Kill a Mockingbird, and last year's
> > congressional hearings on Monicagate.
> >
> > Michael Bacich