Jim-

There is a big difference between selling a repaired product and selling a repaired product as new. Walk into a Best Buy or Circuit City, and you will find refurbished piece of electronics equipment sold as refurbished. If it is sold as new, they are breaking the law.

Basically, you can sell new as new. You can sell used as used. And you can sell refurbished as refurbished. In the case of repaired chips -- people are repackaging "used" to look closer to "new" than they really are, and failing to mark them as refurbished. Of course, with obsolete collectibles, "new" doesn't exist. All htat matters is the degree of "new"ness in a used object. SOmeone who refurbishes a product to make it look closer to new than it is, and fails to mark it as such is misleading the public as a whole. FUrthermore, he is passing off (to the general market if not the specific buyer) his own craftmanship as the craftmanship of the manufacturer (under license from the casino). That is infringement.