[sdiy] Legal issues of cloning

[David G Dixon]

There are no legal issues of cloning, unless a) you use trademarked or
copyrighted materials in your design (like putting the company logo on the
panel) or b) there are elements under patent protection (unlikely, given
that patents are only good for 17 to 20 years from the priority date, which
will be long past for all this stuff).

Opposing viewpoints welcome! 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: synth-diy-bounces at dropmix.xs4all.nl 
> [mailto:synth-diy-bounces at dropmix.xs4all.nl] On Behalf Of GGG
> Sent: Sunday, October 06, 2013 12:38 AM
> To: synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl
> Subject: [sdiy] Legal issues of cloning
> 
> Dear collegues,
> 	There are lot of classical synth clones arround, 
> available as DIY kits - I've built TR909, Polivoks VCF, CS-80 
> VCF, there are active discussions on ARP 2600 clone KIT, 
> about to be on sale.
> 	I wonder, what are the legal issues of cloning synths? 
> What's a procedure of getting permission (I doubt, it's easy 
> to get a permissoin from producers , like Korg or Yamaha, 
> just because of hudge scale of companies and beurocracy and 
> Polivoks is dead end at all). If a developer of the clone 
> adds some sigificant upgrades to the original schematics - is 
> this still considered as a direct clone, or what's a degree 
> of upgrades, one should add?
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Girts
> 
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