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For those who think the US Patent and Trademark office actually serves any useful purpose, I present the following counter-evidence: The big news today is that Motorola is being sued by a company called "General Patent International" for infringing on the following patent. Does anyone really think that General Patent International is interested in the free interchange of ideas and information? These guys sound more like that new breed of lawyers who run around and buy patents just to sue everyone they can find. Bigger fish, like Motorola, are more interesting, of course. If this patent is enforced, no one can make anything with two connectors on it. God Bless America. Pat Reg# 4,603,320 ABSTRACT "A connector interface for enabling communications between first and second data handling systems wherein the data in the first system is arranged in a first type of format and the data in the second system is arranged in a second type of format, includes a connector housing with first and second sets of electrical contact elements exposed at different portions of the housing. Circuitry contained entirely within the housing operates to convert data transmitted to the first set of contact elements from the first data handling system into corresponding data in the second type of format for transmission to the second data handling system through the second set of contact elements, and to convert data transmitted to the second set of contact elements from the second data handling system into corresponding data in the first format for transmission to the first data handling system. One set of electrical contact elements may, for example, be arranged to extend out from the connector housing in two parallel rows to allow the elements to be directly connected to corresponding terminals arranged in a dual in line configuration on an outside printed circuit board. The connector arrangement greatly simplifies the design and construction of data processing systems requiring specific interfaces between certain parts of the systems, such as between data terminal equipment and data communication equipment employing serial binary data interchange."