make an offer to buy Amiga Inc.

[Piru]

[Piru]

@ChuckT

I read that Gateway bought Amiga because Commodore held the patent to the two button mouse and they wanted it.

That's nonsense. Commodore did, however, have patent to toggling a menu selection while keeping the menu open. This patent expired recently.

Note: the patent claim includes very wide range of things. However, as far as I know everything else than this selection toggling had prior art and thus was unenforceable.

[Piru]

If this was the reason then Gateway well deserved to get bust. Multiple buttons had prior art, the patent would never had stuck in court.

Again, AFAIK the only part of the patent that didn't was the actual usage of the two buttons to manipulate menus.

[Piru]

@freqmax

When will the ECS and AGA patents expire?

Ah indeed, there are some patents related: at least copper and blitter, and perhaps some others.

copper:  expires in 2009
blitter:  expired
Peripheral control circuitry for personal computer: expired
Video game and personal computer: expired