From: mark longridge Subject: Re: Rubik lawyers up in arms over website -- Digest v23 #279] Message-Id: <34E7D27D.6083@idirect.com> > From: "Philip Knudsen" > ...Don't know about the 4x4x4 copyright, but it's pretty well known > Rubik did not design the actual mechanism for it. Ideal just used > his name to market the puzzle. Probably (I'm not totally certain) it was Udo Krell, an inventor whose design was used by Uwe Meffert to make the 5x5x5. Norman Diamond wrote: > ... > It is true that none of their mechanism is involved. > Therefore I believe their patent doesn't apply. That is, > if they actually still have a pattent, after Ishige and > some American who preceded all of them (whose name I've > forgotten) ... but wait, it's been more than 20 years > (or 17 in the US), so ALL their patents have expired.... What about Karl Hornell's Java Applet "Rubik Unbound"?? It's all over the internet on hundreds of sites including my own!! I don't think the name Rubik itself can expire since that is his name... so the name of the product is always "Rubik's Cube"... ummmm right? :-) [Moderator's note: _Patents_ expire. _Trademarks_ don't necessarily expire. _Names_ are not protected by law. ] Alan Bawden wrote: > ... The request that you remove Rubik's name from your > site is the kind of petty stupidity we're seeing all to often these days, > and is probably pretty mundane to the cyberlawyers at EFF, but the notion > that they can torpedo your software if it merely duplicates the user > interface (the "look-and-feel") of their physical puzzle might be something > genuinely new. Heck, do these guys claim that they own the underlying > mathematical group? I don't think you can prevent people from making java applets and the like of cubes... but I think they (the lawyers that be) can protect Rubik's name. I don't think anyone can say "Don't show a rubik's cube-like construction on your web page". The other guy who history has forgotten was Larry Nichols who made a 2x2x2 cube called twizzle which routinely came apart and was rejected by Ideal Toy! I'd restore the 3x3x3 java applet if it was my web page. - -> Mark <- ------------------------------ End of Cube-Lovers Digest *************************