Intellectual Property?

[jkendrick]

Anyone who's looked at the Toshiba e800 has heard of Deez, the author of the ResFix utility that unlocks the device for full VGA use. In his release 2 version he added the ability to switch to landscape orientation in both QVGA and VGA.

A similar utility, MyVGA, was released over the weekend that does exactly what ResFix 2.0 (a commercial product) does with some additional functionality. Nice utility with a great UI and simpler to use than ResFix. The author released it into the public domain under the Gnu Public License (GPL) for all to use, complete with source code. This utility was written in a difference language than ResFix, and all was good.

It's important to understand that to get the Toshiba to work in landscape a lot of trial and error work has to be done to get the graphic settings correct to make the ATI gpu work properly. The values to make the screen work in all orientations and resolutions are then stored in the ResFix registry entries.

Here's where it gets fuzzy and I'd like opinions on this. Upon examination of the open source code for MyVGA, the developer of ResFix discovered that his exact settings in ResFix had been simply duplicated in MyVGA, including a nonfatal error he has not fixed yet. Upon pointing this out the author of MyVGA admitted he used the ResFix settings because he didn't see a problem with that. He apologized and said he'd change his settings in the code. The author of ResFix is irate because his "secret" settings are already in the public domain.

Not clear cut whether some property has been stolen or not. What are your opinions of this?

[Dave Potter]

I personally cannot see how resolution settings in the registry can be considered intellectual property. Anyone with half a brain can look at the registry and figure them out. Besides, they are resolutions settings - the author of ResFix did not 'engineer' them, he simply played around until he found the right combination. This is something that anyone could have done. Nor did he 'invent' the concept of resolution or the idea of having multiple resolutions. This was done a long, long time ago and is considered information in the public domain.

I don't believe that his argument will stand up in court. He is merely trying to establish and protect a monoply.

[Jacob]

I agree with Zippper, legally, he doesn't have a leg to stand on.

I can understand his frustration with this, but that doesn't mean that he can do anything about it.

I'd suggest he work on fixing the problems and coming up with a better competing product :)

[jkendrick]

I don't think he feels he has any legal standing with this but he's asked for recoginition on the other guy's web site and hasn't gotten it.

[Dave Potter]

Has Microsoft acknowledged Mac's 'contribution' to the computing world? You know - the whole window based interface?

Competition is a fact of life - he should just concentrate on making his product better.

[Janak Parekh]

Well, I guess this would fall under "reverse-engineering" laws, right? I think this classifies as clean-room reverse-engineering (duplicate the results without looking at the source), and as such Deez has no leg to stand on. But I'm no lawyer.

BTW, "intellectual property" is a dangerously vague term. Does he mean a copyright violation?

--janak

[jkendrick]

He hasn't called it intellectual property nor copyright infringement per se, he's actually just calling it a rip off.

[Falstaff]

Has Microsoft acknowledged Mac's 'contribution' to the computing world? You know - the whole window based interface?

Competition is a fact of life - he should just concentrate on making his product better.

Neither of them originally came up with the original OS either though. In business (and technology) people rip things off all the time. All you can do is keep your product/company one step ahead of everyone else.

[PetiteFlower]

I don't think he feels he has any legal standing with this but he's asked for recoginition on the other guy's web site and hasn't gotten it.

If he doesn't have any legal standing, then what right does he have to ask for recognition? I'm going to have to go with Janak here--no infringement took place. Otherwise MS would be able to sue every word processing program out there because they perform the same functions--so what if they were independantly developed, they used our program as the basis for deciding what features they needed! Well, I believe the term for that is "tough titties". Mr. ResFix is either going to have to come up with something new to add to his program to make it worth the cost, or suck it up and deal with the loss.

My understanding of the concept of "intellectual property" is basically that any original idea/concept/story/whatever is automatically owned, whether it is "officially" copyrighted or not. It's not like a patent or a trademark that you have to register, it's something you get automatically. You have the right to take legal action against anyone who steals your ideas even if you'd never (yet) produced a product from them. Like, you tell your best friend about your idea for a book, but you never get around to writing it; he decides to write it and 5 years later releases a book based on your ideas(the bastard!). Well, you can sue him for a piece of the profits because he's making money off of your idea, even though you hadn't done anything with your ideas, they were still yours and therefore protected.

Anyone correct me if I'm wrong on that.

In this case, the code in ResFix would be considered intellectual property, because it was originally and independantly developed. The RESULTS of running it--the changed Registry settings--are not intellectual property. He didn't come up with the values, just found the right ones and wrote a program to set them. Mr. MyVGA did the same thing--and the fact that he may have used ResFix to determine the correct settings is irrelevant, he still created an original piece of code.

It's not even a rip off, it's called research.

[Kati Compton]

As long as it's only the registry settings that were duplicated, I think the author of MyVGA is fine.

[Janak Parekh]

If he doesn't have any legal standing, then what right does he have to ask for recognition?
I think the question is only a moral one, not a legal one. If Deez spent hours finding the settings, a "thank you" would be nice. However, reading that BH thread, a lot of bad blood now exists between the two guys, and I don't see it happening. :|

--janak

[jkendrick]

In any event, our site is now hosting the GPL release of MyVGA.

[PetiteFlower]

Well I don't blame the guy for not wanting to say "thank you" after being attacked and accused of ripping him off....

[Rod3]

I've been following this thing from the first. I think he did express his appreciation to Deez (ResFix guy). Like a lot of others, I bought Deez's app just to show appreciation for his work, although I don't like it much and don't use it. I am sad that Hugbug (MyVGA guy) has given up developing his app, because it's really so much better than Resfix. The whole issue is very sad.

[Janak Parekh]

PF and Rod3, I agree with both of your points. PF, I was not implying that he will given the situation. ;)

Anyway, we're having a duplicate discussion to the one in the frontpage thread here: http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=215964#215964 -- so I'm going to lock this one and ask that everyone confine the discussion in that one thread. If you feel this is substantially different, let me know, and I'll unlock it again.

thanks,

--janak