We're worried about a particular customer copying the firmware in one of our products. We are adding a DS18B20 temperature sensor to the design because each unit has a unique 64 bit code that enables us to detect when a copy of our hardware has been made.
We can easily prevent the copy from working but other possibilities exist. We could allow copies to work for a certain amount of time or a certain amount of operations. The question is how legal would it be to allow the copiers to produce a volume of copies before the product stops working?
The copiers would end up with a number of unhappy customers which would likely result in the copiers having to replace them with original products purchased from us. On the other hand this could result in a legal challenge of us having entrapped the copiers.
I would like to question the audience here about their feelings and knowledge,
We can easily prevent the copy from working but other possibilities exist. We could allow copies to work for a certain amount of time or a certain amount of operations. The question is how legal would it be to allow the copiers to produce a volume of copies before the product stops working?
The copiers would end up with a number of unhappy customers which would likely result in the copiers having to replace them with original products purchased from us. On the other hand this could result in a legal challenge of us having entrapped the copiers.
I would like to question the audience here about their feelings and knowledge,