"Amiga" patents - what are they?

[persia]

This should be an faq somewhere, the patents are dead, the copyright (on the OS) and trademark (Amiga) continue.  Lots of companies have no patents, Amiga Inc is just one of them.  It's the copyright that prevents you from cloning AmigaOS and the trademark that prevents you from calling it Amiga OS...

[persia]

Gateway own what's left on the patents, a year or two at best on the handful that remain, they also own the name Amiga and copyright on AmigaOS, they in turn belong to Acer.

Now here is where it gets interesting, Gateway had an exclusive agreement with Amiga Inc, the original one.  That Amiga Inc no longer exists.  KMOS, the current Amiga, Inc had the agreement transfered to them after the original Amiga Inc was unable to pay it's bills (insolvent in the EU definition, but not US).  Now was Gateway informed and did they agree to this?  Was the agreement transferable?  These are things we just don't know.  As long as the Amiga name is worthless Gateway probably couldn't care less and Amiga Inc as far as anyone can tell is gone except for rented space on a server.  Indications are that the Amiga World Headquarters (a room above an Amish furniture store) are no more.

wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gateway,_Inc.



They dont OWN Amiga Inc, but STILL OWN Amiga patents, or is it ACER ?
Gateway never SOLD the Amiga patents to Amiga Inc, they allowed Amiga Inc to use them.

executive update, Jan 3, 2000
http://www.amigahistory.co.uk/jan3rd2000.html