Amiga technology and patents ownership ?

[bhoggett]

IIRC Gateway retained most of the patents related to "Classic" Amiga technology, certainly in terms of hardware. Aminos (later Amiga Inc) did buy the trademark, software (possibly including software patents or exclusive licenses regarding the original software, which Gateway had no use for themselves).

However, haven't quite a few of the original patents expired by now?

[bhoggett]

Yes. Commodore and Amiga became disassociated when the original C= assets were sold off. The C= name and trademark was sold off to a Dutch company called Tulip. Amiga and all related assets were sold off to Escom. There is no connection between Commodore and Amiga today.

[bhoggett]

uncharted wrote:
Actually IIRC both were sold to Escom.  They definately sold C= branded PCs in the short time between the Amiga sale going through and Escom going bust.

My memory must be faulty then, because I'm fairly sure I recall the Coomodore brand being sold off prior to Escom's purchase of the remaining assets and trademarks. The events listed in the link you posted do not tally with the way I remember these things.

I don't know if Escom sold Commodore PCs, but I can definitely tell you they sold Escom PCs (in the UK, through the old Rumbelows high-street chain of shops, which Escom also bought).

[bhoggett]

Senex wrote:
Escom bought the whole package. Gateway was the first one being interested in Amiga (patents) only.

That's how I noted it down back then (in German) on a former Amiga history website and as I've just seen it at Wikipedia as well:

"Escom paid US$14 million for Commodore International, primarily for the Commodore brand name. It separated the Commodore and Amiga operations into separate divisions and quickly started using the brand name on a line of PCs sold in Europe. However, it quickly started losing money, went bankrupt on July 15, 1996, and was liquidated.

In September 1997, the Commodore brand name was acquired by Dutch computer maker Tulip Computers NV."

Yes, fair do'. I stand corrected.

I can confirm that they didn't use the Commodore brand in the UK. They sold their PCs under the Escom brand here, as I said, in their own chain of high-street shops. Occasionally, those shops would have an Amiga somewhere under a pile of boxes at the back, but the staff rarely knew anything about them.

Nevertheless, the fact that Commodore and Amiga have nothing more in common these days remains true. The re-appearance of the Commodore brand is immaterial.