Electrical Engineering Stack Exchange
Electrical Engineering Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [legal]

Questions regarding Legal issues in Electronics, like licensing, government regulations, certification, copyrights, and patents.

43 questions
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Best licenses for Open Hardware

Can anyone give me a rundown of the various licenses that are well-suited to open hardware? I've designed a few circuit boards and would like to make them available for others to use, so I need to choose a license for them. Things I'm concerned…
edebill
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26
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Can Arduino be used in commercial products?

Is it legal for me to sell a product that's built with an Arduino? I know that it's open source, but does that mean I can sell my product for profit, or only for use in prototyping?
nathangiesbrecht
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24
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FCC part 15 "must accept interference from other sources": what does this mean?

I've googled around a bit and here are the interpretations I've found in non-authoritative sources: that the device is unable to filter out interference caused by other certified equipment that if there is interference, the device must not…
Roman Starkov
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3 answers

CAN Bus Licensing

Looking around for possible solutions for long distance communication between multiple microcontrollers I found the CAN bus. However, it says that there is a licensing fee for any implementation of the CAN protocol. My plan is to use a…
ihenn
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14
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6 answers

Legality of Reverse Engineering

If there was a "law/legal" stack exchange site I'd post it there, but it's in its infant stages in Area 51. I'm a musician and an electrical engineering student. I've designed a modification to the pickup system of my acoustic/electric guitar that I…
Andrew
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12
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1 answer

Legal obligations when designing electronics

I'm planning on releasing a USB powered device, basically a AVR ATMega2560 µC with a FTDI FT232RL chip powered by USB-C. Although I'm comfortable with the safety of the device (has fuses, ferrite beads, etc.) I'm not sure what are my legal…
Fed Nlanders
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1 answer

What certification is needed for electronic devices in Europe?

I am going to be selling my project, Super OSD. It has a 3 MHz SMPS PSU and an 8 MHz crystal oscillator, but is not intended to emit radio signals. Will it be necessary to get testing to sell in Europe? I am selling from Europe, the UK to be…
Thomas O
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Is this LED fixture safe for use with its current fabrication?

My father is currently interested in investing into a Ukrainian LED fixture manufacturer, and after he bought home a sample, I'm scared. There are 94 LEDs paired up with diodes, all in series, connected directly to mains voltage. The LEDs and diodes…
Sasha
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10
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Is a valid USB VID/PID necessary for strictly embedded use of the Bus?

So the system of USB VID/PIDs as far as I understand it is to avoid conflicts between devices and the USB-IF is handling the distribution of these IDs and wants a fee if you need a VID and a corresponding PID block. Now how is the situation looking…
timonsku
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Kickstarter electronics and local regulations

There are some electronics projects on Kickstarter. For being successfull, they offer buying the product worldwide. I wonder how they are able to comply with all the local regulations, for example CE, FCC, ETL, CSA and so on... For a small team of…
Kevin X.
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Is there any reason for an electronics engineer to go for a professional engineering (PE) license?

Is there any reason for an electronics engineer to go for a professional engineering (PE) license? My understanding is that becoming a PE is only useful/necessary for architectural electrical engineering, due to government regulations. Is this…
bt2
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Intel x86 and patent implications

It's been a long time since x86 was introduced (80386 for example was manufactured 27 years ago... Oh god I am old), so I wonder, what is stopping 3rd party companies from manufacturing x86-compatible processors? Also, I've heard that one cannot…
BarsMonster
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Inspection/QA Criteria for Selling Electronics?

I'm a software developer who has recently taken up a penchant for home electronics and personal robotics. I'd like to start building a prototype for a small device that I would sell though a website, and I realized that I am now in very unfamiliar…
HeineyBehinds
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Copying evaluation board PCB layouts

On the one hand, PCB layouts are considered copyrighted information, and copying them verbatim is a bad idea for legal reasons. On the other hand, the PCB layout of an evaluation board is pretty much a reference design for how to Do It Right. Are…
endolith
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Creative Commons for physical objects?

Does anyone know if it is possible to file physical objects under creative commons or something similar? I don't want to make money off anything I make, I want to show the public how to make it and if someone uses one of my creations for a not for…
aaronalai
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