Amiga technology and patents ownership ?

[Senex]

It seems the real ownership is still with Gateway (or its subsidiary Amiga Development LLC, respectively), while Amino/AI got licences to some of the IP. Which exactly or if any at all they still possess seems to be unknown. At least so far noone I've talked to, be he a dealer or developer, seems to have ever seen a real proof of Amino/AI really possessing what they claim to own.

Well, so far just my experience and humble opinion as a plain user - if anyone did see real proof, I'd be glad of course to see him posting here to throw light on it. But as far as I do see the situation, there's only indirect proof - i.e. noone having publicly claimed yet to be the real owner instead.

Not to mention that already Escom could not prove in 1997 to exclusively own AmigaOS 3.1 source code as it was not part of the Commodore sales contract.

[Senex]

@Argus

If so, then this would have had happened less than a year ago, not before. But indeed Hyperion would be the only ones who'd really benefit from doing so - AROS devs don't want the sources and MorphOS doesn't need them.

[Senex]

@motorollin

I guess it has simply progressed way too far to jeopardize it by any "pollution" through legally uncertain code.

[Senex]

@Amiga1084

They were considered useful (actively or passively) for law-suits with other companies.

Compare Gateway <-> HP:

"Also on July 2, 2004, Amiga Development LLC ("Amiga"), an entity affiliated with Gateway, filed a lawsuit against HP in United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, alleging infringement of three patents relating to computer monitoring, imaging and decoder technologies. Gateway seeks an injunction, unspecified monetary damages, interest and attorneys' fees. HP and HPDC have answered and counterclaimed, alleging infringement by Amiga and Gateway of four HPDC patents related to personal computer technology."

[Senex]

@Gizmomelb

There is a german source by Rainer Benda (former employee of Commodore Germany and Amiga Technologies).

A quick summary:

On the CD-ROM "Kickstart Archive", published by Thomas Unger, there is a chapter "Patente", which does list what has been purchased by Escom under the patent number "US 5,594,473" from Commodore back then.

From that listing one can't conclude that the Amiga operating system would have been part of that buyout.

On July 16, 1997, there has been a judgement (13 U 97/97) by the Higher Regional Court in Celle, Lower Saxony, Germany, which does contain the following paragraph:

"In den zwischen der Commodore-Amiga-Gruppe und der X. geschlossenen Veträgen ist nur von -sämtlichen aufgrund der Patente bestehenden Rechte, Titel und Rechtsansprüche- die Rede; das Betriebssystem OS3.1 ist dort nicht als solches bezeichnet. Den vorgelegten Unterlagen über eine Vereinbarung zwischen diesen Parteien vom 13.03.1995 lässt sich deshalb nicht hinreichend überprüfbar entnehmen, daß die X. die ausschliesslichen Lizenzrechte an dem Betriebssystem erworben hat."

In short it says that in the contracts with the Commodore-Amiga group only those rights are mentioned which are based on the patents - but that the operating system itself wouldn't be mentioned as such. Based on the documents from March 13, 1995, there is no sufficient proof of exclusive rights to the operating system.

Furthermore the court did rebuke the lack of lucidity of the situation.

[Senex]

@Oliver

Right

[Senex]

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."

[Senex]

Yes, as Ralph said in my first comment's link and as I translated then as well - the judgement itself in its conclusion is about the exclusive rights.

But nevertheless to me this seems as if it would have been possible for MorphOS to focus on the A-Box environment back then and just ship it with WB 3.1 IF they would have obtained that other licence (which IIRC refers to VT). Or AROS could have started with kind of AfA back then already on m68k or even better an x86 A-Box.