Introduction
The Free-IP Project has researched potential patent issues reguarding the Free-RISC8 core and we believe that, to the best of our knowledge, there are no legal problems with using this core.
Unfortunately, with this lawsuit happy industry and the many silly patents out there, we would need a large full time staff just to investigate every patent. This is not practical with a small, resource limited organization like the Free-IP Project. Instead, we have targeted our legal search to the most obvious places. No problems were found. If, in the future, something comes to our attention we will make our best effort to resolve the problem quickly and with a minimum of fuss.
It should be noted, however, that Microchip Tech, Inc. has many patents that don't directly apply to the Free-RISC8 core but could apply to an ASIC using the Free-RISC8 core plus other user-supplied peripheral logic. For example, there is a patent on a microcontroller + ADC. Be aware of these when designing a complete system.
The remainder of this page contains misc. legal stuff that might be of interest to users of the Free-RISC8 core.
Prior Legal Suits
The following are taken from the Microchip Technology, Inc. web site. They are press releases related to litigation and other legal matters.
Trademarks
The following is quoted from the Microchip Technology, Inc. web site:
The Microchip name and logo, PIC, PICmicro, PICMASTER, PRO MATE, PICSTART, Envoy, KEELOQ, SEEVAL, PICSEE, TrueGauge and the Embedded Control Solutions Company are registered trademarks of Microchip Technology Inc. in the USA and other countries. SQTP is a servicemark of Microchip Technology Inc. in the USA and other countries. FlexROM, fuzzyLAB, ICSP, In-Circuit Serial Programming, MPLAB, Now Design It, QuickASIC, Smart Serial, Total Endurance, UniMouse and XPressROM are trademarks of Microchip Technology Inc. in the USA and other countries. Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Patents
The following patents are held by Microchip Technology, Inc., and are possibly relevant to a microcontroller that is implemented in an FPGA. The list of patents is:
 | US05991910:
Microcontroller having special mode enable detection circuitry and a method of operation therefore |
| US05987583: Processor architecture scheme and instruction set for maximizing available opcodes and address selection modes |
| US05958039: Master-slave latches and post increment/decrement operations |
| US05905880: Robust multiple word instruction and method therefore |
| US05847450: Microcontroller having an n-bit data bus width with less than n I/O pins |
| US05694067: Microcontroller having a minimal number of external components |
| US05455937: Microcontroller with fuse-emulating latches |
| US05454114: Microcontroller power-up delay |
| US05231603: Variable page ROM |
