Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2000 17:50:50 -0700 From: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org> To: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com>, rsidd@physics.iisc.ernet.in (Rahul Siddharthan) Cc: tlambert@primenet.com (Terry Lambert), adsharma@sharmas.dhs.org (Arun Sharma), freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: On "intelligent people" and "dangers to BSD" Message-ID: <4.2.2.20000324174630.041cb800@localhost> In-Reply-To: <200003232352.QAA03123@usr08.primenet.com> References: <Pine.BSF.4.20.0003231206170.31732-100000@theory1.physics.iisc.ernet.in>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
At 04:52 PM 3/23/2000 , Terry Lambert wrote: >Patents filed after the cut-off date are 20 years from date of >filing, regardless of date of issue. > >The reason this is so is that the US has a Constitutional >premise that something which is not illegal can not be made >illegal. This is called "ipos facto"; That's "ex post facto." And it refers to making something illegal and then penalizing people who did it before the law was passed. You CAN penalize people who do it afterward. >a loose translation >is "a law after the fact". This is why you can own short >barrelled shotguns in the US, so long as they were made >before the law making them "illegal" went into effect. See above. Also, a patent makes nothing illegal; it grants an exclusive right. The most recent copyright extension law removed some material from the public domain. That would have been illegal, too, if this principle had applied. Alas, it wasn't. --Brett "Rules? This is the Internet." -- Dan Gillmor To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?4.2.2.20000324174630.041cb800>