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From: andrew@frip.WV.TEK.COM (Andrew Klossner)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: Re: the Am386(tm) is cool!
Message-ID: <10460@orca.wv.tek.com>
Date: 27 Mar 91 22:50:45 GMT
References: <1991Mar11.231609.5370@amd.com> <asm3y2w164w@infopls.chi.il.us> <27607@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU> <1991Mar24.235005.254@news.iastate.edu>
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Pharmaceuticals drop in price when the original patent expires (after
seventeen years) and everybody can manufacture the drug.  There was a
lot of publicity when this happened to Valium a few years back.

CPU designs, by contrast, are protected by trade secret, copyright, and
occasionally a process patent.  There's no clock counting the days
until the inventor loses all rights, so you won't see the same dramatic
burst of competition and price drop in this field.

  -=- Andrew Klossner   (uunet!tektronix!frip.WV.TEK!andrew)    [UUCP]
                        (andrew%frip.wv.tek.com@relay.cs.net)   [ARPA]