On Tue, Oct 07, 2003 at 06:15:20PM -0700, Don Armstrong wrote: > On Tue, 07 Oct 2003, Joe Drew wrote: > > So far as I know, it is not illegal to infringe on somebody else's > > patents. AIUI patent holders can enforce (or not) their patents at > > will by suing, but doing so is their perogative and no law makes it > > wrong for someone to infringe on a patent which isn't being enforced.
> Well, it is actually illegal, but if someone isn't enforcing it, you > won't ever be sued for it.[1] The real issue here has to do with > trebble damages and the knowing infringement of someone else's patent, > which is (to put it bluntly) not good. Last I'd heard, "knowing infringement" in the US required the complicity of a patent lawyer, since mere mortals are no longer deemed qualified to judge for themselves whether a given usage is infringing. :P In which case, we know only that someone has *claimed* (out of court) that ASF is covered by Microsoft patents. I haven't seen any of the patents (and I'm not looking). You? -- Steve Langasek postmodern programmer
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