Protection against copying of a circuit design

...and erad what Don Lancaster says about patents. They are worth every penny in your pocket, and no more; can you afford 5-20 years in patent courts defending your patent against BigOrg's phlanx of hundreds of lawyers, just because they made a trivial alteration on your patent and "rolled their own"? It has happened, and on numerous occasions.

Does not work on parts marked with a laser (the pits are the PITS to remove that way).

News==----

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If your idea is any good, it WILL be stolen. End of story.

And this protects you from a dental X-ray exactly how?

-- Many thanks,

Don Lancaster voice phone: (928)428-4073 Synergetics 3860 West First Street Box 809 Thatcher, AZ 85552 rss:

Please visit my GURU's LAIR web site at

I want to be copied by pros, not the amateurs :) D from BC

You can't protect a circuit. For a proffesional reversing engineer specialist will not count if the parts have names or not. They knew the function just inpecting the input and outputs. The only way you can protect a circuit is to keep some Intelectual Propriety inside the chips (CPLD, FPGA, EEPROM, microcontroller).

I was forced to reverse engineer the schematic of a PH-meter in old TTL days, manufactured with about 50 IC's, just for repairing activities (the producer does not offer any service manual). It took less than one week in pure manual mode.

Vasile.

Black resin, abrading the markings off components, and patents can discourage copiers.

But the only way that works all the time is don't build it.

Bye. Jasen

I traced the control circuit of a power supply recently that was a pain for two reasons: One outer layer had no signals, and the other had a green solder mask that made traces almost indistinguishable. It wasn't really meant to cause trouble, though. The whole thing was in a snap-on metal can which thoughtfully only had two of the tabs soldered. If they'd soldered a few more it would have been hard to open without destroying it!

How about a self destruct for copy protection? Something like on Mission Impossible.. "This message will self destruct in 10 seconds"...then a puff of smoke. Maybe use thermite.. It burns at about 2500C and will vaporize all the components. D from BC

Nope. Not even wrong.

These techniques STRONGLY ENCOURAGE reverse engineering. In that they are obviously a fun challenge.

Again, instant dental x-rays are trivial these days.

How about black resin mixed with LEAD powder to block x-rays! :)

D from BC

I could not have said that better myself! For example, I can't count the number of times a copy-protection scheme got in the way of something I wanted to do (legally, that is).

And you know all those forced Windows Media Player "upgrades" are just more copy restrictions in sheep's clothing.........

-mpm

PCB scanning outfits prefer jobs when they can sand the solder mask off of the board. It took me a while to find one who would do the job without complaining. They even match the font and design of silkscreen elements. Highly recommend MHTest.com for all raw PCB to gerber conversion jobs.

Guess that is what you are trying to prevent though... ; ) Keep in mind that multiple layer boards don't slow down a PCB scanning outfit...just increases the price. : )

Grant

An X-Ray is only going to be practical if you can't disassemble or damage the workpiece. Otherwise they get in the way. The are commonly used for failure analysis, but are just too awkward to work with for reverse engineering (assuming its for a company and there is cash available for a PCB scan).

Dental X-Ray devices are pretty small too. Large format CMOS, CR, or film would be my choices.

Here is one I did for fun of an Apple IIe:

Disk II controller:

Disk II:

RoHS-compliant lead powder.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

And land your ass in jail for building a booby trap. You might even be charged as a terrorist.

By the time you add all that extra crap to the assembly costs, it'll be too expensive to sell at a reasonable price.

There will be lots of warning labels.... :) "Warning..contains anti-tamper/copying device. Do not open" Maybe it could be designed so that the electronics will just fizzle.. No. BANG! or fire..Just a little poof of smoke. D from BC

Yeah..But when nobody is copying the item, it's a monopoly and one can set the price to any happy amount. :P So if the anti-copy measures cost alot.. Who cares.. there maybe no competition.. D from BC