Re: OT: Software patent FUD?

[Dave Koontz <dkoontz () MBC EDU>]

Great analogy Steve!  We as customers are not and should not have to be
patent lawyers to purchase any type of product.  Nor should we as
customers force a vendor to provide language in their contracts or EULA 
to protect us as customers against any patent infringement.  How the
heck would we as consumers know?

The battle should be between the companies in question, not the end
users.  It rather reminds me of the whole "streaming" content patent
infringement that one company tried to peruse a couple years ago, where
if you steamed any audio or video, you owed them licensing fees.  Or
when someone tried to patent many if not most of the Linux libraries and
code.  Those companies hoped for a huge pay day by offering a minimal
and limited time "grace" payment option to offending organizations who
may be using their so called patented technology in whatever product, of
course with the threat it would cost them much more if they didn't take
advantage of their special  "offer".  Some schools actually bit on it
before it every saw it's day in court.  These companies hoped for their
payday against small organizations before they had to actually fight the
various vendors or larger organizations in court.

I think in general, we have all grown tired of the "patent trolls" who
patent the most basic and obvious of common technologies, and attempt to
hold the world hostage.  Particularly those who do so well after those
technologies have been in wide usage in the industry for many years.

Unfortunately, our Legal System is far behind on understanding this issue.

And to be completely transparent and hopefully without any legal threats
as others have been issued on this list, we don't use any of the
technologies discussed today which have lead us to this point of
discussion.  This conversation is relevant across multiple technologies
and vendors.   That said, I can assure you as a result, I will never
deal with company "x", nor any other organization with such business
practices.



On 12/7/2011 6:10 PM, Steve Bohrer wrote:
> 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