From richard@pajant.co.uk Thu, 9 Dec 1999 08:19:22 -0000
Date: Thu, 9 Dec 1999 08:19:22 -0000
From: Richard Morrey richard@pajant.co.uk
Subject: [Patents] Re: [Patents] Prosecution

If "display" is deemed an industrial application and/or a 
computer program is deemed a "device" then surely software
patents are already valid, according to is said below.

If image display industrial, then surely output to any other 
peripheral is industrial and and useful application is industrial

> - You are providing something (ie. source code)
> - Which allows someone to implement a patented technique (ie. LZW
> technique for image compression)
> - With industrial application (ie. it displays something)
> 
> If you are sued, the judge will have to decide if you are doing or not a
> "contributory infringement"
> a- The judge looks at the patent and checks that using your source code
> is an infringement of the patent, which means you are doing a
> contributory infringement by helping people to use your source code
> (rather than just read it) and implement a patented image compression
> technique






