[Mesa-dev] S2TC - yet another attempt to solve the "S3TC issue"

[Corbin Simpson]

I should point out something not immediately obvious about S3TC: It's
believed that the patents cover any complete pipeline which
decompresses S3TC textures according to the S3TC algorithm. It's
stupidly broad that way.

On Tue, Aug 9, 2011 at 8:12 AM, Alan Coopersmith
<alan.coopersmith at oracle.com> wrote:
> On 08/09/11 02:29, Rudolf Polzer wrote:
>> Is US patent law really that retarded?
>
> US patent law shares a common feature with most other patent systems:
> No matter how carefully you word the patent or read the patent, the
> only way to really find out whether something is a patent violation
> is to go to court and see if a judge or jury, all made up of non-engineers
> who don't understand the details, decide you're guilty of patent infringement.
> All attempts to apply carefully reasoned logic to patents fail when they hit
> this one illogical and unpredictable step, with potentially expensive results.
>
> The US patent system has a bonus feature though - if you knew about that patent
> in advance, then they can triple the amount of money you lose in the lawsuit,
> which is why most companies advise their engineers to avoid knowing anything
> about another companies patents, much less how to engineer around them.
>
> Sadly, the much needed patent reform doesn't seem to be coming, while the
> patent trolls and lawsuits keep rising.
>
> --
>        -Alan Coopersmith-        alan.coopersmith at oracle.com
>         Oracle Solaris Platform Engineering: X Window System
>
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-- 
When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir? ~ Keynes

Corbin Simpson
<MostAwesomeDude at gmail.com>