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On Sat, Apr 23, 2005 at 07:30:00PM +0100, Richard Earnshaw wrote:
> On 23 Apr 2005 13:46:38 EDT, Greg Troxel wrote:
> > IANAL, TINLA, speaking only for myself blah blah blah
> >=20
> Ditto.
>=20
>=20
> > If the code requires patent licenses to function, that's a separate
> > issue. =20
> Indeed.
>=20
> > But if that's the case, GPL'd code cannot be distributed
> > anyway.
>=20
> I believe this is wrong.  It's certainly a dangerous assumption to make,=
=20
> because from it one might conclude that anything under the GPL is thus=20
> patent free and hence safe.  With the situation with US patent law as it=
=20
> is at present (tripple damages for knowing infringement) patent attorneys=
=20
> I've spoken to have said that it's generally safer for a programmer *not*=
=20
> to check for possible infringements and to just do it anyway and hope...

You're right that that could happen (someone put the GPL on code covered=20
by a patent for which they do not have the right to distribute patent=20
access). It would be a very unusual legal situation, as the code would not=
=20
be legally GPL-able. :-)

Take care,

Bill

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