Re: [linux-audio-user] Linux Sampler

On Thu, 2005-12-08 at 18:25 -0500, Lee Revell wrote:
> On Thu, 2005-12-08 at 14:43 -0800, Mark Knecht wrote:
> > Anyone intersted in further study could easily discover the U.S.
> > patent numbers that were originally licensed to NemeSys. (Not Tascam!)
> > If someone cannot do that for themselves then they probably could
> > figure out someone who does know the numbers and ask so they could
> > read the patents for themselves.

The patent was licensed to NemeSys, but it is owned by Conexant.

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6008446.WKU.&OS=PN/6008446&RS=PN/6008446

> If the issue really is a patent dispute involving a patent that is 1) a
> software patent and 2) obvious and therefore invalid, wouldn't this be
> the first case where a corporation went after a free software project
> for software patent infringement? And if this were the case shouldn't
> there be a huge uproar going on?

The patent is very obvious - I came up with the same idea about 30
seconds after hearing about the problem of a low latency sampler with
huge samples, and I'm not even particularly clever. I don't know enough
about US patent law to know how complex or original something has to be
in order to be a valid patent, but if I was a US citizen I would
definitely write some angry mails to the patent and trademark office.

-- 
Lars Luthman
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