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From: mahar@weitek.UUCP (mahar)
Newsgroups: net.music.synth,net.games.video
Subject: Re: Marble Madness & FM Music Synthesis
Message-ID: <269@weitek.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 16-Sep-85 13:35:24 EDT
Article-I.D.: weitek.269
Posted: Mon Sep 16 13:35:24 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 21-Sep-85 05:21:49 EDT
References: <2614@ihnss.UUCP> <267@weitek.UUCP> <2882@ut-sally.UUCP>
Organization: Weitek Corp. Sunnyvale Ca.
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Xref: watmath net.music.synth:524 net.games.video:488
Summary: well . . .

In article <2882@ut-sally.UUCP>, crandell@ut-sally.UUCP (Jim Crandell) writes:
> In article <267@weitek.UUCP> mahar@weitek.UUCP (mahar) writes:
> >In article <2614@ihnss.UUCP>, knudsen@ihnss.UUCP writes:
> >>     FM chip should be pretty easy to build.
> >Your right. FM chips are not that hard to build. However, Yamaha
> >has the basic patent on FM sound generation. Atari's lawyers
> >didn't want to fight it so they just bought the chips from Yamaha.
> 
> Uh -- wait a minute.  Exar was making an FM-able waveform generator
> chip (XR206, I think) fifteen years ago.  Aren't you leaving out a
> significant part of the story?
Patenting FM synthesis is a lot like patenting the color blue to my mind.
I'm well aware that others were there first. They didn't get that patent
however. There exists a feature of patent law which makes an idea unpatentable
if "it is obvious to anyone skilled in the art." I think FM qualifys here.
Yamaha's lawyers have big teeth however, and Atari didn't want to mess
with them.