On Wed, Jul 25, 2018 at 12:56 PM, Nico Williams <n...@cryptonector.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 24, 2018 at 06:29:37PM -0400, Isaac Morland wrote: > > On 24 July 2018 at 18:17, Nico Williams <n...@cryptonector.com> wrote: > > > Note that it's OK to *accidentally* implement patented algorithms as > > > long as the author of the contribution didn't know about. There's no > > > trebble damages in that case, and no tainting of others, plus, > > > contributors and code reviewers/committers can't be expected to do > > > patent searches for each contribution. > > > > Non-lawyer here, but "OK" is not a description I would apply to > > implementing a patented algorithm. You might be thinking of copyright. Of > > course it is true that people can't reasonably be expected to do patent > > searches, as you describe, but the patent system as applied to software > is > > not well-known among knowledgeable people for being reasonable. > > Wrong. With patents the important thing is not to know about them when > you implement -- if you come up with the same idea by accident (which, > of course, is obviously entirely possible) then you are not subject to > trebble damages. But if you knowingly copy the invention without a > license then you are subject to trebble damages. > > A lot of patented ideas are fairly obvious. That always seems true > after the fact, naturally, but many are fairly obvious even before > knowing about them. It's clearly possible that you'll infringe by > accident -- that's OK by comparison to infringing on purpose. > > Nico > -- > If you violate a patent, knowingly or otherwise, you are subject to penalties (perhaps not treble but still penalties) and will have to remove the offending code unless a deal is reached with the patent holder. It is critical that Postgres require that all contributors do not enforce patents against Postgres - full stop. That's the IP agreement that should be in place. -- Ben Scherrey
