[time-nuts] WWVB new modulation

Hal Murray hmurray at megapathdsl.net
Thu Nov 22 23:47:51 UTC 2012


jimlux at earthlink.net said:
> Actually, I think the developing company does have patents on some of  the
> receiver implementations.  You can probably design around them. 

What's the fine print in this area?  Does NIST have any PR blurbs covering 
patents?

Common sense, politics, and patents makes for a horrible mess.


I think I'd be happy if the developing company got a head start.  That could 
be a reasonable trade for a lot of engineering/support during testing.

I think I'd be unhappy if they got a patent on a receiving technique that was 
obvious to one skilled in the art (or whatever the magic patent phrase is) 
after you looked at the description of the modulation/encoding technique.  
That's assuming that NIST didn't get a broad free-to-use license for that 
patent for listening to WWVB.


Another way to view this mess is the general topic of patents in standards.  
WWVB isn't in the same class of "standards" as IETF/IEEE/ANSI/ISO type 
documents, but given that it's a government monopoly, it's as good (or 
better) than any other standard.


-- 
These are my opinions.  I hate spam.







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