Archive of the former Yahoo!Groups mailing list: MOTM

FWIW, I think the issue here isn't who designed the original filter
25-30 years ago, but rather taking the efforts that someone did to
recapture the essence of the filter years later and turning it into a
commerical device without a single nod to the efforts of the one who
provided the resurrected design.

The closest analogy I think of is in securing rights to a broadcast
radio frequency (FM stereo, et al), one has to do surveying and
calculations on where to locate the transmitter and antenna and submit
these to the FCC. ∗However∗, since these are publicly filed with the FCC
for a period of time in which if someone else wants to try for a station
license in the same region, they don't have to do their own research, but
can simply take the already-filed engineering that a rival did and use it
themselves without any requirement to acknowledge the rival's work. This
_sucks_.

I can relate to the filter issue given that a close friend's family got
into a years-long skirmish with another interested party on opening a
radio station in the region. The rival filed using my friend's
engineering on the ∗last day∗ before the midnight deadline. @$$h0les.
(The real dork in the whole fiasco was the idiot at the FCC who wouldn't
rule either way. My friend eventually gave up after almost 6 years).

For Juergen's part, I'm just glad the discrete 2040 filter got done in a
manner that suited him before someone else took it for free.

Crow

/∗∗/