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From: cms@vlsvax1.UUCP (Chuck M. Sweeney)
Newsgroups: net.micro.atari16,net.micro.amiga,net.micro.68k
Subject: Re: 68000 Memory Managment
Message-ID: <214@vlsvax1.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 10-Sep-86 12:33:55 EDT
Article-I.D.: vlsvax1.214
Posted: Wed Sep 10 12:33:55 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 12-Sep-86 08:16:04 EDT
References: <508@elmgate.UUCP> <64@mit-prep.ARPA> <510@elmgate.UUCP> <6985@sun.uucp> <823@navajo.STANFORD.EDU>
Reply-To: cms@vlsvax1.UUCP (Chuck M. Sweeney)
Organization: Voelker-Lehman Fremont CA
Lines: 19
Xref: mnetor net.micro.atari16:1906 net.micro.amiga:4627 net.micro.68k:1209

In article <823@navajo.STANFORD.EDU> rokicki@navajo.UUCP writes:
>In article <6985@sun.uucp>, ludemann@sun.uucp (Jim Ludemann) writes:
>> I hate to tell you folks, but Andy Bechtolsheim here at Sun has a patent 
>> (applied for and granted) on using the untranslated addresses as the 
>> RAS addresses and doing the MMU address translation before the column 
>> addresses are needed for CAS.  Sooner or later, it's going to cost some
>> competitors a WHOLE lot of money.
>
>How the hell can the patent office grant patents like this?  It's sort
>of like patenting the idea of grounding DTACK on a 68000 or putting
>chocolate ice cream in root beer; the idea is too obvious.  To coin a
>phrase, it's patently ridiculous.
>
One of the criteria the patent office uses (or is supposed to) in granting
a patent is that a modification to an existing device/process cannot be
obvious to a person of usual competence in the field.  Perhaps they felt
that it would take unusual competence to figure this one out? (:-)

Sweeney