Electronic – Legal obligations when designing electronics

The defines for things like hardware addresses are fundamentally facts and facts can't be copyrighted. I might like to change the format of the defines for my own purposes but there's absolutely no way you can get by without using those values. The only thing you can do is change the name of the define which would be a simple search and replace - not much effort if you do plan to do it.

Chip manufacturers generally want you to use their chips and do a lot to ensure that you can. If they prevented you from using the register definitions in any reasonable way then no one would use their chips.

EDIT: After discussion I don't believe that I actually answered the question with regards to license-free implementations of header files. I decided to do some digging and the MSPGCC project seemed to be a good place to start. Turns out they (basically) use the TI-provided headers for each device (rewritten to their formatting and maintainability standards). The headers don't seem to have a license included or stated in the header file, nor could I find any licensing information. The only documentation I found was a description of where the headers came from and how/why they were modified. They do say that the files are created such that the register definitions match the names in the datasheet, so theoretically you could recreate it from the datasheet.

I took a look at one TI datasheet I have an didn't find any licensing info - just a copyright notice which applies to the document as a whole (so I assume).

Thus, I've come to the conclusion that it is NOT permissible to take a licensed file, strip out parts and release it under a different license. You should start from a blank file and implement a header as per the description in the chip datasheet (after ensuring there's no license attached to it, but if TI doesn't do it I doubt others will). Alternately, if there's no license attached to the released chip-specific header files, use the hell out of them instead :)

In Florida it is illegal to use the term 'Engineer' or derivatives in a business name if there are no licensed professional engineers working there. There may be restrictions on using the term even if the number of licensed engineers working there is not zero, but if there are zero you can't use it.

Realistically, there's no reason to call yourself an 'engineer'. At least in the US, because of restrictions similar to the one above the term 'Engineering Services' or similar is limited mainly to the architectural firms you mentioned. The term is co-opted. Just call yourself a consumer electronics designer, embedded software developer, analog electronics designer, digital designer or whatever is more specific to your case.

As for whether it would ever be worth it for an electronics engineer I've found the answer is generally no. I've worked for several different companies in different fields and no one even gave it a thought. It wasn't expected, it wasn't sought and there wouldn't be talk of a raise or anything if you did get one.

I only ever really hear of two types of electrical/electronics/embedded engineers getting the PE: engineers who have years of experience in a variety of areas and had a specific need in mind when getting it and confused new graduates who have been talking to their uncle who's a civil engineer.

Edit: After skulking around on Wikipedia for a bit I've unearthed some information that is interesting but doesn't change my original answer. That is, this information applies only to other circumstances.

It seems that the restriction on using the term 'engineer' is more directed towards not being allowed to offer the public 'engineering services' unless you or your company is licensed. Thus saying 'Hi Bill, I'm Fred and I'd like to offer you engineering services in exchange for money - here's my card' means you need to be a professional engineer. If you're just a shmo who works for a company you can put 'engineer' on your business card because you're not offering any services to the public - your company is doing the offering and hopefully they have this mess sorted out for themselves.