From owner-freebsd-hackers Tue Jun 12 9:50:54 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from imo-r08.mx.aol.com (imo-r08.mx.aol.com [152.163.225.104]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4C76D37B408 for ; Tue, 12 Jun 2001 09:50:52 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from Bsdguru@aol.com) Received: from Bsdguru@aol.com by imo-r08.mx.aol.com (mail_out_v30.22.) id n.a4.1558c4fa (16789) for ; Tue, 12 Jun 2001 12:50:47 -0400 (EDT) From: Bsdguru@aol.com Message-ID: Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2001 12:50:46 EDT Subject: Re: Patented algorithm in FreeBSD To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: AOL 5.0 for Windows sub 139 Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG In a message dated 06/11/2001 7:02:30 PM Eastern Daylight Time, msmith@freebsd.org writes: > So, you are very safe in using this technique, for a variety of reasons: > > - The patent is almost certainly invalid, and proving this in court > would be straightforward. > - Compaq (owner of the Digital patents now) is not in the business of > patent litigation, nor do they typically sell their patents to other > companies that are, so the chances of you being forced to defend your > use of a similar algorithm in court in the first place are very small. > Worthy of note, however, it that IF they decided to try to enforce it, it would most likely cost you much more than you are worth to defend yourself, no matter how bogus the patent it. Welcome to the US Legal System. Bryan To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message