> In article <Pine.LNX.3.96.981220164425.2059B-100000@cocoa.demon.co.uk>,
> "Alex Butcher(linkern)" <linkern@cocoa.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> > Patents in the computing industry should have much shorter
> > lives and should should not become 75-year (or whatever) cash cows for large
> > multinationals.
>
> 17.
But the USPTO says:
"The term of the patent shall be 20 years from the date on which the
application for the patent was filed in the United States"
(from http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/doc/general/whatispa.htm )
20 years?
I constantly hear people saying it is 17 years from the time the
patent is issued...
The RSA patent was filed on Dec. 14, 1977 - but issued on Sept. 20, 1983:
http://patents.uspto.gov/cgi-bin/ifetch4?INDEX+PATBIB-ALL+0+4679+0+1+177277+OF+1+1+1+4%2c405%2c829
This page says it expires on September 20, 2000:
http://www.cyberlaw.com/rsa.html
(Which agrees with 17 years from issued date)
Can anybody explain the discrepency?
Maybe the 17 year timeframe is an old rule which they've changed?
Cheers,
- Jim
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