Liability of Users for Patent Infringement [LWN.net]

Liability of Users for Patent Infringement

Posted Apr 22, 2011 8:19 UTC (Fri) by renox (guest, #23785)
In reply to: Liability of Users for Patent Infringement by orcmid
Parent article: Google Linux servers hit with $5m patent infringement verdict (The Register)

Your point about Google's karma is not reasonable: software patents should be banned (as they are more or less in Europe, even though it's not so clear here also), so the US are in an 'insane' situation.

It is not reasonable to expect that Google alone will fix this 'insane' situation..

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Liability of Users for Patent Infringement

Posted Apr 22, 2011 17:20 UTC (Fri) by orcmid (guest, #74478) [Link]

You misunderstood my observation about karma. Google has users of software that it distributes under GPL (and based on Linux) for which those users are being sued for patent infringement (not Google). I am referring to the Android business, of course.

In this case, Google has lost a suit (obviously yet to be appealed) because it has used software (Linux) in its own business for which there is no source of indemnification.

To argue that there should not be software patents (and I am very much aligned with that notion) has nothing to do with it. If that is the defense of Google's actions, I would say we are also seeing the consequences of hubris.

However the software-patent story unfolds, it will be over an extensive length of time and very painful for those who enjoy pissing into the wind.