Thanks all,

I did contact philips on this, The licensing is required if you create a device that talks on the I2C bus, but not if you purchase license chips. The royalties are 3% of the end product price, and the basic I2C patent expires in 2004 (USA). So, since this is a commercial product, SPI sounds much easier to work with. (SPI and Microwire are trademarks)

BTW the basic patent has expired in all but the USA. There are other patents for level shifting and high speed I2C that are still valid.


Cheers