[kictanet] Reverse engineering - or patent infringement?

[Brian Munyao Longwe]

I believe that what Prof Kamau has done is the dissasembly, cataloguing and
indexing of the *components* of the STB, including how they are
interconnected, the circuit board designs, internal and external interfaces
etc...

This then serves as the basis to be able to procure same or similar - adapt
the designs in order to come up with a local version, ostensibly at a lower
cost.

Patents in such hardware are held by the chip manufacturers - Prof would be
offending if what he was doing was trying to 'hack' the chip in order to
produce his own version. That would be a grossly expensive and in all
likelihood, foolhardy pursuit. It's much easier (and cheaper), once the
components have been identified to purchase them from the same manufacturer
and simply do the assembly here - with whatever local modifications may be
required.

I remember that when we started messing around with computer assembly in the
early 90s - the furore from the "branded" companies - with all kinds of
threats regarding patents, copyrights etc...

I simply see this as determination of components for local assembly of STBs.

I'm sure the good professor is wise, intelligent and educated enough to know
that patent infringement could land himself in a heap of trouble.

Regards,

Brian

On Tue, Feb 9, 2010 at 9:07 AM, Walubengo J <jwalu at yahoo.com> wrote:

> @Andrea,
>
> Reverse engineering - or patent infringement?
>
> If I was Prof. Kamau, I would carefully ride on both - depending on the
> convenience of the laws applicable and the demand for public good. Draw the
> parallel with generic HIV medicines...
>
> walu.
>
> --- On *Tue, 2/9/10, Andrea Bohnstedt <andrea.bohnstedt at ratio-magazine.com
> >* wrote:
>
>
> From: Andrea Bohnstedt <andrea.bohnstedt at ratio-magazine.com>
> Subject: Re: [kictanet] Getting a hold on cybercrime against women (cyber
> pests!)
> To: jwalu at yahoo.com
> Cc: "KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions" <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
> Date: Tuesday, February 9, 2010, 12:40 AM
>
> Reverse engineering - or patent infringement?
>
> On 8 February 2010 21:01, <bitange at jambo.co.ke<http://mc/compose?to=bitange@jambo.co.ke>
> > wrote:
>
>> Dear listers,
>> Prof. Kamau, University of Nairobi's engineering school has successifully
>> reverse engineered the converter box for digital TV.  Those willing to visit
>> the fab lab next week should register with Awiti in my office.  His e-mail
>> is nawiti at information.go.ke<http://mc/compose?to=nawiti@information.go.ke>
>> .
>>
>> I am hoping soon we can reverse engineer the ipad so that we can use it to
>> distribute e-books to all kids in the country and avoid this theft of
>> textbooks.
>>
>> Regards.
>>
>> Ndemo.
>> Sent from my BlackBerry®
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: "muriuki mureithi" <mureithi at summitstrategies.co.ke<http://mc/compose?to=mureithi@summitstrategies.co.ke>
>> >
>> Date: Wed, 3 Feb 2010 18:14:20
>> To: <bitange at jambo.co.ke <http://mc/compose?to=bitange@jambo.co.ke>>
>> Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions<kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke<http://mc/compose?to=kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke>
>> >
>> Subject: [kictanet] Getting a hold on cybercrime against women (cyber
>> pests!)
>>
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-- 
Brian Munyao Longwe
e-mail: blongwe at gmail.com
cell:  + 254 722 518 744
blog : http://zinjlog.blogspot.com
meta-blog: http://mashilingi.blogspot.com
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