[Openec] Patented NiMH charging algorithm

[Albert Cahalan]

On 8/3/07, Richard A. Smith <richard at laptop.org> wrote:
> I have a bump in the road toward a fully open EC codebase.
>
> I've learned this week that GoldPeak intends to apply for a patent on
> their long life NiMH battery charge algorithm.
>
> OLPC gets a royalty free license to use this technology but we are not
> going to be allowed to release the detailed charging info on the NiMH
> algorithm.
>
> If they are granted the patent then even if one of you smart gents were
> to reverse engineer the code we still can't use it.

This doesn't make sense at all. Patents are public.

GoldPeak publishes the algorithm via the patent,
then offers to let us use the algorithm if it is kept secret?
Huh? I suspect there is a misunderstanding here,
because it is just insane and completely illogical to
publish something while simultaneously demanding
that it be kept secret.