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          * The world premiere upload of this arc file was to *
          *                   THE MISSION,                    *
          *          Sysop and Chief Padre, Jay Miner         *
          *                  (415) 967-2021                   *
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     On October 11, 1988 the Amiga computer was granted U.S. patent
#4,777,621.  The patent, making six specific claims, had been applied for on
July 19, 1985.  The specific items claimed dealt mainly with the Amiga's
custom chips and their unique way of sharing the system's workload.
     PATENT.TXT is the complete, exact text of U.S. patent #4,777,621.  FIG1
through FIG5 are black on white, low res IFF pictures of the five figures
(block diagrams) included in the patent issued.  Use any file reader, text
editor, or word processor to read the text, or print it out on your printer.
It's 10 pages long if printed out continuously (no top/bottom margins).  Use
any "show" utility to view the pictures, or print them out also.  FIG4 and
FIG5 will probably be more legible if printed out than viewed on your
monitor.  Print them as black & white positives; turn smoothing ON and set
scaling to INTEGER and you'll get a good printout.
     If you read the whole text of the patent, you'll notice quite a few
mistakes - typos, misspellings, poor grammar, sentences that just don't make
sense due to obviously missing words, etc.  Rather than try to correct an
official document, the text was typed exactly as the patent reads.  It was
proofread very carefully, so any errors you see are just as they appear in
the official document.  The numbers that appear in the body of the patent's
text in the middle of sentences obviously refer to the numbers in the five
figures.  They are not superscripts (footnote numbers) in the original, but
appear just as they are in PATENT.TXT, just a number right in the middle of a
sentence, immediately after the item they refer to.  The numbers that appear
in the header portion of the patent in [brackets]...I have no idea what
they mean.
     "3 Drawing Sheets" are referred to near the beginning of the patent.
Fig. 1 and Fig. 2 were on sheet one; Fig. 3 and Fig. 4 were on sheet two;
Fig. 5 was on sheet three.  In order to fit each figure on one low res
screen, some of the labels had to be shortened to an abbreviation, with the
explanation listed at the bottom.  (The originals are not like this.)  If an
abbreviation is used with no explanation at the bottom, that is because it
was already listed on a previous figure.  (Example:  FIG3 uses the
abbreviation "M.M.I.D." but has no explanation of it at the bottom, because
"M.M.I.D." was already defined in FIG1.)
     If you would like a "real" hardcopy of the patent yourself, you can
order a copy for $1.50.  Request a copy of U.S. Patent No. 4,777,621 from:
     U. S. Department of Commerce
     Patent and Trademark Office
     Washington, D.C.  20231