Legal Status of Amiga Clones (past and present)

[alexh]

I think that is open to interpretation. If copyright can protect the characters, places and themes in books and films, why not registers and their descriptions in a hardware reference manual?

The subject is kinda mute as no-one is going to produce anything

[orb85750]

trekiej wrote:
Does anyone know who owns the copyright to the Amiga manuals?
If I were to make an Amiga 2000 from the schematics would that be wrong?
I do not know a whole lot about copyrights.

Any patents on the A2000 have expired, so you are free to build and sell one from scratch (but you can't call it the Amiga 2000, because that's a trademark infringement).  However, it is not going to be a useful machine without the kickstart rom.  Amiga Inc. owns the copyright on its contents.  The copyright on the Amiga manuals also prevents you from republishing their contents.  Who owns those copyrights at this point?  Don't know.  -Dave

[trekiej]

Right now we have these:
1. Patents
2. Copyrights
3. Trademarks
4. Trade secrets (how something is processed,I think)

How does one find out if the A2000 has a current trademark?
AmigaInc. owns the OS and roms.

[persia]

We actually don't know what the agreement between Gateway and the original Amiga Inc (Amino).  There is some evidence that Gateway retain ownership of some or all of Amiga IP (worthless now, it's all over 17 years old), brand and patents and gave the original Amiga Inc exclusive use of these.   The Original Amiga Inc transfered this agreement to KMOS (the current Amiga Inc) to avoid creditors and unpaid employees.  Whether this was allowed in the agreement with Gateway is unknown.  And any action would need to be undertaken by Gateway's parent company Acer.  Suffice to say the brand name has been badly sullied by KMOS and is probably not worth fighting over.

As for Kickstart, one could argue that it's part of Amiga OS and that if you legally own a copy of Amiga OS you own the Kickstart that is associated with it.  This would be a tough fight in a court since they were separate products, but given that the whole ROM concept was abandoned last century it's hard to tell what a Judge/Jury might rule.

Add that to the fact that Hyperion has a claim to Amiga OS through their contract with the original Amiga Inc and it's subsequent insolvency.  The cut and bail to KMOS is a good argument that the original Amiga Inc was indeed insolvent, so it is possible and likely that Hyperion owns OS 4 and the right to use the AmigaOS name.

I think I have a headache....

[Haranguer]

Persia, when did Amiga Inc declare bankruptcy?  I must have missed that ...

You do know, don't you, that in order to be declared insolvent, a company must go into receivership?

No.  Hyperion Entertainment do not have a claim to Amiga OS.  But with any luck, with they stupid legal battle, both Amiga Inc and Hyperion Entertainment will, indeed, go to the wall.  Then, Amiga OS will become public domain.

I've come to the conclusion that that is the only ray of hope for my favourite computer ...

[orb85750]

Haranguer wrote:
Persia, when did Amiga Inc declare bankruptcy?  I must have missed that ...

You do know, don't you, that in order to be declared insolvent, a company must go into receivership?

No.  Hyperion Entertainment do not have a claim to Amiga OS.  But with any luck, with they stupid legal battle, both Amiga Inc and Hyperion Entertainment will, indeed, go to the wall.  Then, Amiga OS will become public domain.

I've come to the conclusion that that is the only ray of hope for my favourite computer ...

As much as we all would love AmigaOS to become public domain, I don't see any possibility of it, even in principle.  If Amiga Inc. and Hyperion were both to go bankrupt, assets would be sold in the process, including all Amiga trademarks, copyrights, etc.   We would have yet another new "owner" of Amiga -- someone or some corporation with a couple million dollars, I suppose.

[persia]

@Haranguer

Depends which US definition of "insolvency" you mean.  Amiga Inc were not insolvent by the Bankruptcy Code but WERE INSOLVENT by the Uniform Commercial Code.  They were also insolvent in common everyday speech.  The contract doesn't specify BC or UCC.  US Law is quite different to the Common Law practised here or in the UK.  

The absolute joke is that AmigaDos will never generate enough money to pay even a reasonable percentage the lawyers' fees in this case...

[Trev]

@trekiej

You can look up patents and registered trademarks in the US at http://www.uspto.gov. Trademarks don't have to be registered, though, which is why people hire attorneys to determine whether or not a particular trademark exists before deciding whether or not to claim it for themselves.

Any work (and "work" has a very loose definition) created by anyone--person, corporation, whatever--is automatically copyrighted. You don't have to claim it, it just is. In the US, the copyright extends 95 years beyond the death of the copyright holder. (Good for your kids, bad for everyone else.) I'm not sure how it works exactly for copyrights owned by non-individuals. I'm sure it's explained somewhere at http://www.uspto.gov.

Trade secrets are the intellectual property, processes, secret handshakes, executive washroom keys, etc. that someone--person, corporation, whatever--has not made public. Sometimes, even "public" information can be considered a trade secret, hence the trouble surrounding leaked details on various Apple products.

Amiga, Inc. (Delaware) owns various Amiga-related trademarks, including one for "providing on-line forums for transmission of messages among computer users concerning computers and computer technology." That means amiga.org, amigaworld.net, et al could, in theory, be subject to a trademark infringement claim if "Amiga" were used without permission.

The orignal Amiga trademark is still listed as being owned by Amiga, Inc. (Washington). Funny how the record was never updated. ;-)

Regarding reverse engineering, read the following:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_room_design
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_engineering

EDIT: Interesting note: The Workbench trademark was abandoned, so there's probably no reason it couldn't be used by MorphOS, AROS, or another project.

EDIT 2: And someone apparently registered a t-shirt slogan: "AMIGA Ask Me If I Give A-shit"

[Fats]

orb85750 wrote:
I just found this from lawmart.com:

"The copyright protects the form of expression rather than the subject matter of the writing. For example, a description of a machine could be copyrighted, but this would only prevent others from copying the description; it would not prevent others from writing a description of their own or from making and using the machine."

Note the last part: So anyone could make the chip based on your design (if it's not patented) and sell the resulting product without owing you any royalty.  Your copyright protects you against someone else publishing your work, but not against someone producing the product you designed.  Only a patent protects you there.  (And the maximum patent lifetime is 20 years.)

I don't think so, I think the design of the custom chips itself is also something copyrightable and if you want to make an exact copy of a certain chip you need to copy the design at some point, e.g. transfer it to the manufacturer etc.
That said, I don't know any custom chip replacement project that is literally copying the original design. They are doing their own design that happen to behave compatible with the original chips. This is not copyrightable. I don't think it is even possible anymore to do a literal copy of the designs as they were done for old technologies.

greets,
Staf.

[bloodline]

Staf is right, tring to build the original chips from the original designs, using today's technology would be like trying to build a stage coach using only VolksWagen parts... And original Victorian plans!

[orb85750]

And speaking of trademarks, is it legal to use the term 'amiga' without permission in a domain name that refers to the computer brand?  For example, amigastore.com, amigacomputers.com, amigakit.com!

[orb85750]

bloodline wrote:
Staf is right, tring to build the original chips from the original designs, using today's technology would be like trying to build a stage coach using only VolksWagen parts... And original Victorian plans!

So, you can't build a stagecoach from Volks parts?  What kind of hobbyist are you?

The copyright on a circuit design does not prevent others from legally building and selling a final product based on that design.  It merely prevents others from publishing your work.  

[Piru]

@orb85750

I just found this from lawmart.com:

"The copyright protects the form of expression rather than the subject matter of the writing. For example, a description of a machine could be copyrighted, but this would only prevent others from copying the description; it would not prevent others from writing a description of their own or from making and using the machine."

So anyone could make the chip based on your design (if it's not patented) and sell the resulting product without owing you any royalty. Your copyright protects you against someone else publishing your work, but not against someone producing the product you designed. Only a patent protects you there. (And the maximum patent lifetime is 20 years.)

You're confusing patents and copyright, and making incorrect conclusions.

If someone was to produce clones, they need to produce their replacement content. They cannot use the original content (or "form") in the chips.

Example: To produce kickstart replacement you are allowed to use the Autodocs and other documentation about the functionality as a base of your clone, even though the autodocs and documentation themselves are copyrighted (obviously you cannot use any of that copyrighted material directly, but the knowledge you gain from the docs is not copyrighted. This is what the original quote of "For example, a description of a machine could be copyrighted, but this would only prevent others from copying the description; it would not prevent others from writing a description of their own or from making and using the machine." means).

You're allowed to reverse engineer the original binary and produce a code that does the same (the limitations on reverse engineering depend on local law, EU has less restrictions than USA for example).

Such reverse engineering was done while making MorphOS (and AROS).

Patents may prevent some things being cloned, however. For example MorphOS (and probably AROS, too) intuition didn't support toggling multiple menu items while the menu was open. This particular patent has expired now, and multiselection is possible in the latest MorphOS versions.

[orb85750]

Piru wrote:
@orb85750

I just found this from lawmart.com:

"The copyright protects the form of expression rather than the subject matter of the writing. For example, a description of a machine could be copyrighted, but this would only prevent others from copying the description; it would not prevent others from writing a description of their own or from making and using the machine."

So anyone could make the chip based on your design (if it's not patented) and sell the resulting product without owing you any royalty. Your copyright protects you against someone else publishing your work, but not against someone producing the product you designed. Only a patent protects you there. (And the maximum patent lifetime is 20 years.)

You're confusing patents and copyright, and making incorrect conclusions.

If someone was to produce clones, they need to produce their replacement content. They cannot use the original content (or "form") in the chips.

Example: To produce kickstart replacement you are allowed to use the Autodocs and other documentation about the functionality as a base of your clone, even though the autodocs and documentation themselves are copyrighted (obviously you cannot use any of that copyrighted material directly, but the knowledge you gain from the docs is not copyrighted. This is what the original quote of "For example, a description of a machine could be copyrighted, but this would only prevent others from copying the description; it would not prevent others from writing a description of their own or from making and using the machine." means).

You're allowed to reverse engineer the original binary and produce a code that does the same (the limitations on reverse engineering depend on local law, EU has less restrictions than USA for example).

Such reverse engineering was done while making MorphOS (and AROS).

Patents may prevent some things being cloned, however. For example MorphOS (and probably AROS, too) intuition didn't support toggling multiple menu items while the menu was open. This particular patent has expired now, and multiselection is possible in the latest MorphOS versions.

No, your statements have little to do with mine.  Read my statements more carefully.  I had already made clear previously that one could not make and sell a direct copy of the AmigaOS or any other content stored on some medium, such as a ROM, a book, CD, etc.  However, that does *not* address whether one may use a physical circuit design to produce a microchip based exactly on that design.  If the design is not or is no longer patented (and patents have a very finite lifetime), then a copyright will not legally prevent a chip manufacturer from using the design to make the chip.  Correct?

[bloodline]

@orb85750

The chip manufacturer is subject to the design copyright. The Manufacturer needs the right to copy the design from the copyright holder... Piru has explained all this :-?


-Edit-
A patent could cover the method to make the chip... not the actual design...

As an example, you could patent the method to make a jumper, and copyright the design of the jumper... get it?

[orb85750]

bloodline wrote:
@orb85750

The chip manufacturer is subject to the design copyright. The Manufacturer needs the right to copy the design from the copyright holder... Piru has explained all this :-?


-Edit-
A patent could cover the method to make the chip... not the actual design...

As an example, you could patent the method to make a jumper, and copyright the design of the jumper... get it?

I still don't get it.  What you're saying is that since the Wheatstone Bridge (or some other circuit design) was published in a copyrighted work, nobody is allowed to build and sell it?  For how many years?  That does not appear to be the case, right?