9 Feb
2006
9 Feb
'06
10:18 a.m.
On 2/9/2006 at 12:49 PM Tim Shoppa wrote:
Just as a backgrounder, there's a company called
Color Kinetics that
owns the patent for mixing R, G, and B light from LED's. I was briefly
targeted
by the company in the 90's for suggesting on Usenet
that the same could be
done
without paying them royalties.
If you ever want to know what's wrong with the US patent system, look no
further than this. Exactly how is this "idea" different from using colored
incandescent or fluorescent lamps, lasers, or for that matter, colored
bits of starch on a transparent background or even colored signal flares?
It uses LEDs. To me, this falls under the category of "obvious", but it
would likely take years of litigation and megabucks to get the patent
overturned. How does this kind of stuff advance the art?
And don't get me started on the subject of software patents...
--Chuck