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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: aMIGA_dUDE on October 30, 2006, 12:27:09 PM

Title: Commodore and XOR patent
Post by: aMIGA_dUDE on October 30, 2006, 12:27:09 PM

I am trying to do some research about XOR patent but I am having no luck.

The only thing I can find out some people say that's why Commodore went out of business.  As they where no allow to sell in to the US with out paying there fine.

Do you have any information on the court case and why they lost the case in the first place?

Title: Re: Commodore and XOR patent
Post by: uncleted on October 30, 2006, 03:30:25 PM

It's kind of sad, because only after the XOR patent expired, the guy with the 1976 prior art actually found out about it.  They allegedly made over $50 million out of that patent.

The patent was obviously stupid, but I guess Commodore failed to locate prior art, or prove the invention was obvious enough to defend themselves.  Cadtrak brought an injunction against them in the USA, which meant they couldn't sell.  AFAIK, I think around that point they settled, but they couldn't put up the supposed $10 million in order to pay the fine.

At that point in time, Commodore were pretty screwed anyway, but a lot of people argue if they could've sold their product in the USA (especially the CD32) they might've come out OK.  Commodore weren't the only company to lose to Cadtrak obviously.

I'd love to dig up some court notes for you, but Google isn't turning up much.

Title: Re: Commodore and XOR patent
Post by: alexh on October 30, 2006, 04:43:13 PM

XOR patent??

It couldn't possibly be a patent for XOR logic gates for silicon (that dates back to 1900's) so what could it be?

Title: Re: Commodore and XOR patent
Post by: hardlink on October 30, 2006, 04:47:48 PM

Quote

The patent was obviously stupid, but I guess Commodore failed to locate prior art, or prove the invention was obvious enough to defend themselves.  

From my faulty memory, it was even more outrageous than that. The way the Amiga renders the cursor using the custom chip set does not even use the XOR method that was patented! So Commodore tried to put up a LOGICAL and technical defense in court, even having Dr.Havemose(?) testify. Bad move. The scumsuckers put up an emotional argument, Big Company Screwing Little Us. They won.

Title: Re: Commodore and XOR patent
Post by: Karlos on October 30, 2006, 04:54:04 PM

:-?

Title: Re: Commodore and XOR patent
Post by: uncleted on October 30, 2006, 05:02:05 PM

The patent was for the cursor and sometimes mouse pointer that most systems used at the time (and still do.)

In order to avoid using a backing store (a space in memory to preserve the background image), you can do an XOR of the background with the cursor, which can be XORed again to restore the original background.

It was filed in 1978 and awarded in 1980.  Patent number is 4,197,590 if you want to look it up.

Title: Re: Commodore and XOR patent
Post by: Louis Dias on October 30, 2006, 05:35:46 PM

[Vegita_voice]
Unbelievable!
[/Vegita_voice]

Title: Re: Commodore and XOR patent
Post by: DamageX on October 31, 2006, 12:50:46 AM

That's not even funny.