RE: (ET) RE: Elec Tract Website

["Bruce E Conner" <BConnor nefn com>]

Once you have published (as in, made public) your design, it is public
domain and cannot be patented without having some sort of substantive,
non-trivial, non-obvious changes made to the design.  A patent is a form of
publication with protections.  So feel free to put your design out there.  

Bruce Conner

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Allan [SMTP:allanhv worldnet att net]
> Sent: Tuesday, December 14, 1999 9:30 AM
> To:   elec-trak mailing list
> Subject:      Re: (ET) RE: Elec Tract Website
> 
> I plan to release any design I come up with to whomever wants it.  As is,
> no
> warranty, etc., of course.  I even thought that if I get PCB's made up I
> could
> sell them at cost to anyone who wants to build up their own.  (The volume
> would
> make it cheaper for me, too.)
> 
> I don't know much about patents, but I would be afraid that if the design
> were
> not patented it could be pateneted out from under us by someone else.
> LINUX has
> an advantage in that copyrights are simpler/cheaper to get than patents.
> Also,
> I would guess that many of the people on this list who would be 
> interested
> in
> working on a design have signed agreements with thier employers giving 
> the
> employers rights any designs.  Anyone care to comment on this?
> 
> Allan
> 
> LarryE3 aol com wrote:
> 
> > Sure hope I'm using the correct e-mail address.  Let me know if I 
> > should
> be
> > using something else.
> >
> > The recent comments about updating the Elec Trak series with modern
> controls
> > seems like a common idea.  Maybe we should start a web-site specific to
> a
> > design team of everybody interested and with everybody contributing a
> small
> > part to come up with a design and prototype hardware.  The results 
> > could
> be
> > produced and marketed something like LINUX source code.
> >
> > Any thoughts or comments?
> >
> > Larry Elliott
> > Idaho
>