>
> I'm interested to hear the details about this intellectual property.
> What patents or copyrights are being violated if I do a clean room
> reverse engineering of the PICMicro in question, then start producing
> it as a second source?


Well, one of the more interesting patents that Microchip has is the "n-bit
databus in n-pin package". Which means that if your microcontroller has a
databus of 8 bits, then you can't put it into a package of only 8 pins (or
less, I believe, if I read the patent correctly... I had fun looking it up
earlier this week). This basically protects all 8-pin (and smaller) that
Microchip makes. Given the fact that they have that particular patent, I am
pretty certain that they have other patents as well.

As for second sources, I am quite certain there are a number of
manufacturers that make Microchip products under license. I believe there
are several in China and Brazil, also because these countries wouldn't allow
Microchip to sell to them unless they had such a construct in place. I'm not
certain whether these manufacturers would sell outside of their target
market, though.

Greetings,
Maarten Hofman.
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