David_J_Buerger@cup.portal.com (05/20/88)
Several publications this week have reported IBM's intention to collect patent royalty fees from PC/XT/AT clone makers. According to PC WEEK, 5/17/88, p. 121, there are about 10,000 such patents involved. "IBM is sending cloners a packet of 20 'representative' patents" out of this total. Can anyone report the exact patent numbers of this representative group? I just spoke with a small clone manufacturer, and while he is concerned about IBM's intentions, he doesn't have the foggiest idea about which patents are involved. He said normally manufacturers stamp the patent number of items they want to protect on each item. Not many of these exist in older products. Are the 20 representative patents dealing solely with circuit design? David Buerger dbuerger@scu.bitnet