Dynamic nature of patent law

When Silicon Valley’s semiconductor industry was getting started in the 1970s, patents were the last thing on anyone’s mind. Companies were innovating so rapidly that they often didn’t bother patenting things they were going to replace with the next version in a few months.

Twenty years later, an obscure inventor from Southern California showed up with a patent on the microprocessor, shocking the chip companies that believed they had invented it. Eventually, the patent was overturned, but by then, patents had become a central concern of the high-technology industry.

By Pete Carey
Mercury News

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