On Sat, 14 Dec 1996, William Chops Westfield wrote:

>     > The work I did, I feel, is "clean room".
>
>     Unless they said "by using this spec you agree not, to write code that
>     implements it..."
>
> I think your code would unquestionably be infringing the Dolby Patents.
> Unlike copyright and "trade secret" protection, "clean room" techniques and
> using only public information do not buy you anything (after all the patents
> themselves are public.)  Whether They'd be upset at you is a separate
> question - I think they'd be more inclined to go after people who try to
> use your code in commercial products (you'd probably be after those too!)
>
> You could always try asking...
>
> BillW
> (Not a lawyer either)
>

Thanks for all the advise.  I am not planning to make any money off this
project.  I just did it for fun in my spare time.  I think I'll just write
to Dolby and ask how they would feel about it.  I cannot call my project
Dolby Pro-Logic for the reason that the Dolby Pro-Logic name is owned by
dolby and the software I wrote does not meet the entire spec.  I don't
have the time or money for lawyers, so I might have to blow off the whole
deal if Dolby even whinces.

Stuart Allman
studio@halcyon.com