> Tony, I think you misunderstand patents. As a user of a commercial software > product, I have no involvement in whatever patent licenses were required to CONSTRUCT that product. The patent protects certain hardware or software process inventions, and the patent holder can sue anyone who uses their hardware or software process in the contruction of a product.
Not true in all jurisdictions, which is why most contracts have a patent suit indemnity clause in them. But of course, most such "users" would also be IBM customers - bad karma to sue them when the real cause of the problem is someone else. It's pretty unlikely that IBM would sue a customer in such a case, unless the customer wilfully ignored copious warnings. Even at the peak of the vicious FUD campaigns in the 1980s it was never suggested as one of the outcomes of going PCM. Around a quarter of a century ago (!) I actually wrote such a document - "Gewährleistung für Rechts- und Sachmängel". Basically it indemnified the user against patent suits provided we were informed of them promptly and given control of the defence. I think such clauses are still quite common. (Our lawyers reviewed it and complained about a misplaced comma. I was quite pleased. I then got a ten-minute lecture on the significance of comma placement in German legal documents. In some jurisdictions, commas may be ignored in determining meaning. Not in Germany. There used to be 57 rules concerning the use of commas - thanks to the German Orthography Reform there are now only 9.) -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
