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Did you actually read the article?Did you actually read the article?Posted Mar 22, 2012 17:16 UTC (Thu) by wookey (subscriber, #5501)In reply to: Did you actually read the article? by rqosa Parent article: Idealism vs. pragmatism: Mozilla debates supporting H.264 video playback (ars technica)
> Patent infringement doesn't just end at the boundary of what you distribute.It's called 'contributory infringement': http://www.invention-protection.com/ip/publications/docs/Contributory_Patent_Infringement.html It's designed to stop the case where you copy a device but miss out some vital part that would make it infringing and then get that made overseas or bought from some other supplier. That quite a lot like the case of making your browser with everythig except the codec, which you get from elsewhere. Sucks doesn't it? The whole patent system stinks, but you can't say 'they' don't have the legal angles well lined-up. After all, that is 'their' area of expertise. The MPEG-LA and the whole anti-society effects like this stupid inability to standardise an HTML5 codec simply falls out of the incentives that patents and the legal system provide. If it makes you angry then you are a reasonable person. And yes, I know I haven't provided any case law. I'm not sure that there is any directly-applicable (i.e in the software arena). There may well be, but I'm afraid I have more important work to do than try to search it out right now. My point is there there is potentially-relevant law. gmaxwell isn't just making it up. The law does not work the way a reasonable engineer/person thinks it should in this area.
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