4 ms·
Patents are time-limited not eternal. The first company to build a laptop most certainly obtained a patent on it, as did the creator of the first flat-screen.
by 0x44 15y ago
Patents are time-limited not eternal. The first company to build a laptop most certainly obtained a patent on it, as did the creator of the first flat-screen.
- vacri 15y agoPatents last for 20 years in the US. To give you an idea of how rapidly the personal computing/internet boom has progressed, Mosaic is not 20 years old yet, Mosaic being the browser that marked the start of the www era.
- fpgeek 15y agoIf Netscape had been smart (and evil) enough to patent the hell out of their browser and then stick all those patents on a shelf for a while... they'd probably be more valuable than Apple is today.