OT: Software patent FUD?

[Steve Bohrer <skbohrer () SIMONS-ROCK EDU>]

I expect most of us are not lawyers, and I'm not either, but I just  
wanted to check on a common sense level (Not, of course, that common  
sense is necessarily relevant to legal action.)

As far as software patents go, my basic thought is that there is a big  
difference between being a consumer of infringing software, vs. being  
a developer of the infringing software. I'd always assumed that buying  
a commercial product meant you did not have any particular  
responsibility for any potential patent infringement problems of the  
product.

For example, if I buy a GM car, and then someone sues GM for  
infringing a patent, I'm pretty sure they can't come after me and sue  
me as a patent infringer just because I was driving my car. I don't,  
as far as I know, need any special language in my car-buying-contract  
to protect me from any patent sins that GM might have committed. If  
someone does successfully sue GM over a patent issue about my car, and  
GM can't settle, would I then need to stop using the infringing car?  
That could be a hassle, but is still much a much lesser problem than  
being sued as an infringer. Even if it came to loss of the car, seems  
like GM would owe me a refund, since they'd sold me a car that turned  
out to not be usable.

Steve Bohrer
Network Admin
Bard College at Simon's Rock
413-528-7645