Dutch Firm Says Dell Motherboards Violate Its Patent

Posted by timothy on Monday June 23, 2003 @04:39PM from the professional-stunt-lawyers-on-closed-track dept.

Call Me Black Cloud writes "This article (also here) briefly discusses a suit against Dell for royalties on US patent 5,594,621. This patent, titled "Motherboard for a computer of the AT type, and a computer of the AT type comprising such motherboard", concerns the layout of ISA and PCI cards on a motherboard. Tulip Computers International somehow managed to convince the USPTO that its arrangement of cards on a mobo was worthy of a patent. Fearing the orderly arrangement of my sock drawer was infringing on a patent, I was relieved to discover only a patent for a magnetic sock holder, which solves the "well known problem associated with everyday laundering...the disarray that can occur with paired items of clothing such as socks"

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AT ? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-06-23 17:19 · Score: 1, Interesting

is dell still selling AT computers ? I thought we all switched to ATX long time ago...
Re:Irrelevant but.. by signifying+nothing · 2003-06-24 01:01 · Score: 2, Interesting

The world itself already does have everything allocated to some "owner". Just try to go out and find something you can legally just claim.
It's hardly surprising that there is no longer much lying around to be claimed. But isn't the issue not so much a lack of unclaimed resources as an inappropriate extension of the concept of ownership?