• http://www.chillingeffects.org/reverse/faq.cgi

and this one:
the first sale doctrine in patent law, which allows a purchaser of a product on the open market to use it and even take it apart

and this one:
Since there is no time limitation on its enforceability, trade secrets can potentially provide eternal protection for software. Trade secrets terminate and become public domain information if they are publicly disclosed for any reason, however, including the widespread publication of the information on the Internet. Reverse engineering and independent discovery of the technical information within a product s are considered legally viable means of ending another's trade secret, provided that the product is obtained lawfully.

Seems pretty straight forward to me. Always good to see that I have indeed paid for good advice.
cheers,
Douglas

Patents are good for , say 17 years? What incentive is it for people to spend time and money to come up with a widget that someone down the road or a 3rd world country is going to knock off and sell it out from under the designer?

I make horns. I didn’t copy Edgar, Brooks or Tad since the design didn’t appeal to me. I liked a lot of things about the Jbl horns and the Altec horns. So I took a look at those and didn’t like the way the driver could mount to a wood horn. So I came up with the whole aluminum throat concept. I never liked the paper seal on horns, so I thought I would use the O-ring. Wayne ran some numbers in the Horn-Response program for me to come up with the best throat dimensions. So my horns are different from the others and I sleep at night because I'm not making a knock off. I cant get upset other wood horns that might be made, that's just silly. I think it would be a little disgusting to see wood horns with a metal throat in a similar arrangement. Why copy my stuff? people should come up with their own concept. But when a person could say this horn is a two piece build and a martinelli horn is a 4 piece build, everything else is pretty close, then a court upholds this kind of practice. Doesn’t that move the needle on your bulshit meter?

The drug companies seem to do a damn fine job of keeping their shit 'theirs' until the patent runs out.

So, if some guys invents a super atomizing annular discharge nozzle to save the free world from its evils of energy use. It would sure be nice for everyone to get to use it ASAP. worse case he patents the idea. charges an arm and a leg for this planet saving device until the patent expires in 17 years. Then, everyone can buy the generic Nozzle; wait, no I'm back on heart pills and pharmaceuticals again.