Subject: [linux-audio-dev] Re: Patents on some Linux OS code
From: Artem Baguinski (artm_AT_v2.nl)
Date: Thu Dec 09 2004 - 09:43:06 EET
Paul Davis <paul_AT_linuxaudiosystems.com> writes:
>>They think that if there is no "producer" backing the product then they can
>>attack the user as the guilty of the patent infraction, and I think that we
>>will see more threats and trials because of that. This is something that is
>>happening, not only my thoughs.
>
> it is *not* happening. its as simple as that. court cases based on s/w
> patents are very, very, very hard to find, for reasons i outlined
> earlier.
>
> so-called "intellectual property" cases are happening, but these are
> entirely different in that they are based on copyright and trademark
> and trade secret laws, which do not look anything like patent law.
when I installed fedora core 2 there was no way to play, let alone
encode mp3 audio. i thought that was because mp3 is patented and free
implementations can't exist in US. would fedora.us have been sued if
they provided lame and mpg123 in the distribution?
-- Artem Baguinski: http://www.artm.org/ V2_Lab: http://lab.v2.nl/ V2_ Organisation for the Unstable Media: http://www.v2.nl/
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