If Acer owns all the Amiga patents then what benefits do they gain from just sitting on them for all these years !!!

Or have Acer used some of the Amigas technology in their products already, I honestly don't know that much about Acer & their products so I'm not sure....

Just wondering if anyone here knows if Acer have actually done anything with the Amiga patents....

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@Franko

is this for real? got any patent ownership listings or anything like that?

I have definitely missed a lot in the intervening years I was lost in the wilds of linux and FLOSS administration

Last edited by Belxjander on 25-May-2012 at 10:39 AM.

@Franko

As far as I can tell from a very quick Google search and the related hits, Acer owns the intellectual property of "Amiga" through their purchase of Gateway. It's not easy however to determine exactly what this intellectual property entails though; only that (apparently) Amiga Inc licenses it from them and this was part of some of the disputes between Amiga Inc and Hyperion.

If Amiga Inc is indeed paying Acer for licensing of whatever intellectual property they need to, then Acer *IS* doing something with it - making money for essentially no work.

Not a lawyer, and not active in the Amiga scene for around 5 years, but still pop my head in from time to time. Take anything I say therefore with a very large grain of "this guy probably doesn't know what he's talking about".

@Belxjander

Quote:

Belxjander wrote: @Franko is this for real? got any patent ownership listings or anything like that? I have definitely missed a lot in the intervening years I was lost in the wilds of linux and FLOSS administration

As far as I can gather it's for real...

It seems Acer (Gateway was just a subsidiary of Acer) holds all the patents to all the Amiga hardware (IC's like Paula, Denise, Agnus etc,,,)

Like this from a couple of years back kinda explains it in simple terms...

http://www.osnews.com/story/23983/Amiga_Inc_Selling_Amiga_Trademark/



@ yttriumox

A.inc only owns the trademarks for Amiga stuff they don't own any patents for any Amiga hardare, the patents appear to be owned by Acer who seem to have just been sitting on them all this time....

Like I said, I don't know much about Acer products and was just wondering if anyone who does had spotted something they sell that maybe has Amiga like properties in them. It would be very interesting to find out if Acer have been embedding Amiga technology in some of their products all this time and no one even knew about it....

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@Franko

I'd be surprised if they even realise they own them. Particularly the licence to Amiga Inc who have thoroughly abused it.

I can't imagine any of the technology would be of any use to them today, even back in 1997 Gateway were more interested in the patents for things like the two button mouse, that Amiga/Commodore apparently held!

Last edited by danwood on 25-May-2012 at 12:23 PM.

if I remember well, Gateway kept only Commodore-Amiga hardware patents, which are now all expired. So they probably have nothing Commodore-Amiga related today.

Last edited by andres on 25-May-2012 at 12:41 PM.

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A1200/020+68882 - 6 MB RAM - AmigaOS 3.0

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@Franko

Well, as others have said, it's unlikely they would or could use them, even if they knew about them and they were relevant in this day and age. Acer are just a cheap x86 PC manufacturer, so software-wise things like the hidden right-click screen menu, multiple menu item selection and others (which I think were Commodore patents) are irrelevant as they just run Windows, and hardware-wise, it's all waaay out of date and would be tricky to support drivers-wise when off-the-shelf parts come with ready-made software.

Their closest connection, funny enough would be CUSA. They're in the same market at least...

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Quote:

danwood wrote: I'd be surprised if they even realise they own them. Particularly the licence to Amiga Inc who have thoroughly abused it.

Someone should tell them

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@Franko

Acer To Acquire Gateway

As you can see, the idea that everything Gateway went to Acer is ridiculous.
There's also a few good links to other sites with patent discussion.

#6

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@number6

Quote:

number6 wrote: @Franko Acer To Acquire Gateway As you can see, the idea that everything Gateway went to Acer is ridiculous. There's also a few good links to other sites with patent discussion. #6

Erm... sorry but I can't see how it's ridiculous !!!

If Acer bought out Gateway then what's so ridiculous about Acer owning the patents if Gateway already owned them and sold them to Acer as part of the buyout !!!

It may seem ridiculous to you but most of us here aren't full time arm chair layers and patent experts like yourself so why not simply put in your post here why this is so ridiculous to you instead of posting a link that leads to countless other links which I don't want to trawl through...

Can't you ever just answer a simple question with a concise neat reply instead of forever linking to other threads and other links that are full of speculation & rumour... ;roll:

Gawd I'd hate to ask you something simple as "what time is it" as I'd probably get a reply with links to how atomic clocks work and links to various world time zones and probably some Einstein theories thrown in for good measure...

Ridiculous... maybe... but please say why without sending me all over the forums just to find out why you think something is ridiculous...

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@Franko

Quote:

If Acer bought out Gateway

If you read the thread you'll see that Gateway sold parts of the company to other companies.

Quote:

In selling its professional business to MPC, Gateway is turning over one of the more successful pieces of its business prior to completion of the Acer deal.

Ergo, how do you know that the patents absolutely ended up with Acer?

#6

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@number6

Quote:

number6 wrote: @Franko Ergo, how do you know that the patents absolutely ended up with Acer? #6

And how do you know they didn't !!!... double ergo with bells on...

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@Franko

Quote:

And how do you know they didn't !!!... double ergo with bells on

I'd like to know as well. One of the problems with "news" stories is that they may or may not be true. Witness Tulip and Yeahronimo sale which technically never happened.

Then we have all the Amiga cases basically ending up with a gag order, making it impossible to learn the truth.

If you think the Gateway/Acer deal is difficult to understand try:

Amiga Development LLC v Hewlett-Packard Company

I assure you you'll go mad reading that one. Heh.

#6

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@number6

Quote:

number6 wrote: @Franko I assure you you'll go mad reading that one. Heh. #6

If you'd "like to know as well" then why did you jump in with the "ridiculous" comment !!!

So now your admitting you don't know either and just thought you'd say it was "ridiculous" just because you felt like it... I see...

It's bad enough trying to figure out the great Amiga "Whodoneit" (or should that be "Whodidn'tdoit) without having unhelpful comments like "ridiculous" thrown in the mix. especially when the one throwing them in admits he hasn't a scooby doo either...

I went mad two years ago when I discovered these Amiga forums and perhaps I should've know better than to ask a simple question like I did where all I was asking was does anybody know if Acer had ever done anything with the Amiga patents which they may or many not own...

So forget about it, it wasn't important and it doesn't matter, it was just a question and it's my own stupid fault for asking it...

Now I'm off to gibber on the Discovery channels viewers panel forum where you can ask as many questions as you want and never get a useless reply, cos quite simply they never reply to any questions their viewers panel ever ask ask them... not perfect I know but at least there are never any arguments...

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@Franko

Quote:

As you can see, the idea that everything Gateway went to Acer is ridiculous.

The above is accurate based on accepting the news article as accurate. The news article about Gateway selling their pro division to someone other than Acer illustrates that.
Where the patents are is a different issue.

#6

Last edited by number6 on 25-May-2012 at 05:28 PM.

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Who really cares about something that isnt of any use for us :)

@Kicko

Especially considering these are EXPIRED patents.

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Using "voltage" instead of "potential", which leads to inventing new words like "amperage" instead of "current" (I, measured in A) or possible "charge" (amperehours, Ah or Coulomb, C). Sometimes I don't even know what people mean.

@Kicko

Quote:

Kicko wrote: Who really cares about something that isnt of any use for us :)

I didn't ask whether anyone cared or not...

And to be perfectly honest who cares about someone who just posts a comment telling us he doesn't care about a subject and yet cares enough about the subject to post a comment in it...

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@Franko

perhaps to do harm? because Acer manufacture PCs poor.

This is news for me as there is an Acer Aspire below this keyboard (and was connected too to the XE before it went down)

Actually when it is a big player why won´t we put it down like the all past ones;)

Sorry but this Commodore Logo is a bit idiot when tired and that makes it a bit offensive. Can You just stop it? Call Me 2- days 24h. at a row in my own work an ass or someone is just ridiculous too? Sorry about that but just my opinion.

So GoGo my shit pc?