On Thu, 8 Sep 2022, Warner Losh wrote:
> But it likely didn't matter, since 32v likely lost its copyright
> protection due to AT&T distributing too many copies without the required
> copyright markings. At least that was the preliminary ruling that caused
> the suit to be settled... AT&T didn't want it finalized, though the cat
> was somewhat out of the bag at this point...
It would be nice if that were an absolute rather than a probably, because
then the status for 32V wouldn't be clouded.
It would be nice. At this late date, one wonders what would happen if it were
litigated again... I suspect that nobody would bother given the small possible
gain and the huge expense... But it would also reduce shareholder values
to explicitly say there's no copyright here or to clarify that the ancient licenses
are valid. So we're in this state where it's basically free and clear, treated like
it's free and clear, but really isn't free and clear.
Warner