How many of you knew this?...
Every single patent Musk came up with for his Tesla operation...HE OPEN SOURCED THE PATENTS......
OPEN SOURCE...
........In that, HE DOES NOT OWN THEM. They are PUBLIC.
THIS is the guy that just bought Twitter.
You know what? If he says he's gonna open source Twitter, I am leaning towards believing him.
Because frens here do not know patent law.
Certain patents last 14 years, others 20, etc. The problem I holder's didn't believe it was long enough for the originator to exploit the monopoly.
Eventually the law was changed so you could file extensions. Then it was more extensions.
Mickey isn't covered by a patent, but by copyright, which also had a limit. But the music and movie industries decided to fight for copyright extensions. Long story short it is life of author + extra. If it is a patent or copyright created by a corp.Corp., it gets even weirder. Copyright is 95 years + extensions.
THEN, it depends on when you put either in place, as you are grandfathered in and follow those rules.
All this to say, the original Mickey copyright has expired, but others have not.