[Eeyore]

John Williamson wrote:

Eeyore wrote:

There has been case law on this subject in all countries that support
copyright and patent laws.

The law varies from country to country.

However since many Behringer products are slavish copies of their competition,
I'd like to know how they can claim copyright for something that's not theirs in
the first place !

As far as I know, the details vary, for instance what is fair use in one
place is not necessarily fair use in another. The principle remains,
though. If I design it, I own the copyright on the design, unless I
assign it to another person or company.

That's certainly true in the UK (Copyright Design and Patents Act) but may not be true
elsewhere.


If I patent it, I publish the design & principle so that others can use the design &
principle under
licence.

Actually, the government publishes it as part of the 'deal' with you.


As for Behringer stuff being copies of their competition, if it's
patented, it can be licenced, otherwise, a "clean room" approach can be
used.

I'm not aware of them having any patents on the run-of-the-mill stuff I'm talking
about. It's all likely to be 'prior art' anyway.


Admittedly, Behringer may not do this...
I would think, though, that just changing one component or dimension
*may* result in the courts considering it to be a new design, hence a
new copyright now exists for that new design. It depends how good your
lawyers are.

The UK law seems to exclude such a ruse. I forget how it's phrased but it seems to
embody a good common sense approach and as a consequence a frivolous change wouldn't
be an acceptable 'excuse' against breach of copyright.


Most, if not all, IC maufacturers produce reference circuits which can
be used by anyone using that IC, so if both places use the same IC, is
it not possible they're both using the same reference design? Possibly
even modified the same way, even if the design teams are working
independently.

You won't find that many of those in typical mixers for example today though.


User interface is a different matter, in that you *could* claim there's
only one logical way to lay out the controls. The fact it "just happens"
to be the same way as Company X did it a while ago can be quite a field
day for the lawyers.

Didn't I read somewhere that Behringer were in trouble for copying stuff
anyway?

Again ? Not recently AFAIK. They got in trouble for breaking the US RF (FCC) emissions
law though.

Graham