Leyne, Sean wrote:

> Jim,
>
>
>> The Firebird event alter mechanism is patented by Borland,
>>
>
> True, but the patent would have expired by now. They only last 17 years...
>
>
>

Not so simple. Here's the rule:

Patents that were filed after June 7, 1978 and issued before June 8,
1995. These applications have a term that is the /longer/ of the two
following options:
1) 17 years from the issue date of the application, or 2) 20 years
from the /earliest/ filing date.

The first filing was July, 1991 and was issued in January, 1997. Looks
to me like it has another 16 months to go.

Patent number is 5,592,664 (the URL is too long to be useful).




--
Jim Starkey
Founder, NimbusDB, Inc.
978 526-1376