[CREATE] on reverse engineering, patents and stuff

[Jon Phillips]

On Tue, 2007-05-22 at 13:14 +0200, Dave Neary wrote:
> Hi Alexandre,
> 
> Alexandre Prokoudine wrote:
> > IMO,
> > giving proprietary guys even a tiny chance to sue one of our
> > developers should never occur.
> 
> Unfortunately, with the US legal system, it's almost certainly the case
> that the proprietary guys can sue us whenever they want. Likely enough
> it will be patent violation, but perhaps trademark and copyright issues
> will also surface (particularly DMCA).
> 
> IMHO, avoiding patent-encumbered functionality which is important for
> advancing the program is a mistake, and is giving in to the flawed legal
> system. I don't think that we should court lawsuits, but we should also
> not ham-string ourselves by actively avoiding them. Let the chips fall
> where they may, one day soon there will be a landmark lawsuit, thousands
> of patents (and patent applications) will be thrown out, forcing a
> severe reform of the US and EU patent systems.
> 
> Cheers,
> Dave.

I agree. Do until done. Its good to know generally the law, but not to
be encumbered by it.

Jon

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Jon Phillips

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