FUD

Posted Aug 31, 2010 18:01 UTC (Tue) by coriordan (guest, #7544)
In reply to: FUD by zlynx
Parent article: Hold The Celebrations; H.264 Is Not The Sort Of Free That Matters (ComputerWorld UK)

> source code can never violate a patent.

My instincts tell me this is wrong, but I noticed an interesting thing when looking for proof. In the USA, the relevant part of the Patent Act § 271, and in Justice Ginsburg's ruling in Microsoft v. AT&T (2006, USA) that "Because no physical object originating in the United States was combined with these computers, there was no violation of §271(f).". That case hinged on the word "component" in paragraph (f), so it doesn't necessarily change the main paragraph (a), but it would be interesting to look into what other types of infringement might not be applicable to software.

> But distributing source code cannot possibly be any more illegal than distributing copies of the patent application documents.

Distributing software is inducing infringement :-/ Distributing an MPEG patent won't cause anyone to enjoy a video.

FUD

Posted Aug 31, 2010 18:08 UTC (Tue) by linuxrocks123 (subscriber, #34648) [Link] (2 responses)

I have two things to say about this. First, the case with DVD Jon was never fully resolved, but just kind of dropped, so it has little value. Second, the DVD Jon case was about copyright infringement, not patents, so it is not relevant here in any case.

Distributing software could, arguably, be patent infringement. However, there is an independent experimentation defense to patent infringement which very well may apply. Also, you could say that you are distributing the software to help other independent experimenters or for use by people who do have a patent license. As far as I can tell, no one has ever been sued for distributing source code, so we really just don't know.

---linuxrocks123

FUD

Posted Sep 1, 2010 17:03 UTC (Wed) by DonDiego (guest, #24141) [Link] (1 responses)

> I have two things to say about this. First, the case with DVD Jon was
> never fully resolved, but just kind of dropped, so it has little value.

Where did you get the idea? DVD Jon won fair and square, then the appeal was laughed out of court...

FUD

Posted Sep 20, 2010 23:53 UTC (Mon) by linuxrocks123 (subscriber, #34648) [Link]

My apologies, this was conflating a few issues. You are correct that DVD Jon won fair and square in Norway. What I was thinking of were the subsequent cases in the U.S. against various people not Jon. I seem to recall that these cases were, ultimately, dropped by the MPAA, although I don't care to look them up right now. So, there's little legal precedent in the U.S. for this that goes our way.

---linuxrocks123