Just piping in to recommend (third, I guess) Sheldon Brown's most-excellent website. I have little hope of ever moving the needle on the cool-old-biking-guy-ometer; he's got the thing pegged to the right. I'll miss him too.

It's always struck me as a little odd how difficult it is to get an off-contract phone. When we had to replace my wife's (stolen AT&T) phone, we wound up going to Best Buy to buy a GoPhone because the AT&T store makes you put $50 worth of minutes on it at the time of purchase. There is no such restriction, AFAIK, anywhere else; the AT&T guy even recommended that we do this. He was gracious enough to not charge us the ridiculous $20 SIM-replacement fee, though.

This was the second place we visited - the first AT&T store (apparently one orbit further from the corporate nucleus than the one we eventually wound up at) suggested a Byzantine series of added lines, shady discounts, and contract extensions was necessary to allow us to buy a phone _at all_.

Quick google search turns this up:

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/help/item/When-does-a-patent-expire.html

Upshot is, either 17 or (for patents filed after 1995, which this probably was) 20 years, according to freepatentsonline.com. Good to see that innovation is being promoted by lengthening the patent term.