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In 1956 AT&T opened all of it's patents to everyone without royalties to settle an antitrust suit, including the transistor. http://explodingthephone.com/docs/
by tcas 12y ago
In 1956 AT&T opened all of it's patents to everyone without royalties to settle an antitrust suit, including the transistor.
http://explodingthephone.com/docs/dbx1036.pdf http://explodingthephone.com/docs/dbx1036.pdf
- gdilla 12y agoDidn't know that! That turned out well. To the innovators go the spoils.
- sp332 12y agoThe opposite, actually. This is about giving the spoils to everyone who didn't invent the transistor.
- gohrt 12y agothe spoils to everyone who innovated on the transistor.
- gdilla 12y agoThat's what I meant. THose that generated the most value on the transistor, got the spoils - eg Fairchild, Intel, etc
- sp332 12y agoNot necessarily, unless they also got patents on their innovations.
- AnthonyMouse 12y agoYou're aware that it's possible to make money on an invention without patenting it. First to market advantage, a foothold in the market, continuing brand recognition as the go-to source for that product, a head start on the next round of innovation, increased sales across the industry as the product becomes more valuable to customers, increased sales of complementary products and services, etc.
- jedrek 12y agoOr just keeping it a trade secret, like WD-40.
- tendom 12y agoThat was a calculation, assuming that they would loose more in the suit than in opening up it's patents, this isn't the same at all, though it is a direct response to the question.
- dredmorbius 12y agoCore element there being "to settle an anti-trust suit". It's helpful to keep in mind that AT&T operated under anti-trust watch from 1917 through 1984, with the 1950s action being among the most significant. It was also responsible for keeping AT&T out of the computing market, which meant that when AT&T created an operating system, it had something it couldn't sell, so it gave it away. You may have heard of this, it was called "UNIX".