[Patents] Facts vs. Intention

[jp@smets.com jp@smets.com]

In recent discussions (including the proposed difference between source
and binary), I found one legal argument missing : the importance of
intention.

I think that, if programmes were patentable, an infringement case could
be made by saying something like "although the source code is available,
it was clearly not the intention of the publisher to publish it for
educational purpose but rather to make it available and usable by many
users. The intention of the author was therefore to publish a programme
product, as source code, based on patented techniques and this is an
infringement".

This means that, from a law point of view, there is a way to make a
difference between
        1- source code intented for educationale purpose (to spread the
knowledge of a patented technology)
        2- source code intented for immediate use

All source code distributions would probably fail under case 2-, since
they are intented to be used rather just read.

Regards,

JPS.