source file: m1531.txt Date: Mon, 21 Sep 1998 01:35:17 -0400 Subject: Re: 19 tone patent From: aloe@rev.net At 03:39 PM 9/9/98 -0400, John Starrett wrote: > I read with amusement and dismay Paul Hahn's reference to the >patent issued to Yamaha for the use of 19TET on keyboards, guitars, wind >and brass instruments. It a sad fact of life that patents are issued >every day for items and ideas in long and common use. If I were to market >a 19TET guitar Yamaha could legally stop me, even though I had been >building them for years before they filed the patent. Why don't you market a guitar fretted in 19-tone 1/3 Comma Meantone, with an adjustable bridge? How precisely are guitars fretted, anyway? >Luckily, >microtonalism is just a passing fad, and we won't have to worry about >anything like that. Musicians in India won't have to worry about 19TET either, unless they simplify. --Charlie Jordan