[Patents] Reverse negineered info

[PILCH Hartmut phm@a2e.de]

> > > > > If I published on a web reverse-engineered information about how to
> > > > > low-level program GeForce video card, would I infringe a patent or
> > > > > commit a crime?

> Generally reverse engineering is forbidden. An exception  
> applies, if it is done to allow interoperability. 
 
> A restricted act according to Art. 4 lit. b) is "translation, adaptation, 
> arrangement and any other alteration of a computer program". That includes 
> reverse engineering. An authorization by the rightholder of the program is 
> not 
> necessary under the conditions of Art. 6 of the directive. I do not see 
> that in 
> a case like that the aim is to establish interoperability and fulfill the 
> other 
> two conditions of Art. 6 lit a), c) of the directive.

By publishing information about how to low-level prograrm a video card,
you enable people to support that video card on different operating
systems.

Publication of information acquired by reverse-engineering will always
boost interoperability.  And all programs have an almost infinite number
of potential interfaces to other programs.  The interoperability
requirement really, when thought to the end, breaks all ownership claims,
including patent claims.  If interoperability is taken seriously, the
TrueType patents (whose status is still unclear, see freetype.org) cannot
be upheld, because that would prevent the use of TrueType fonts on another
platform and thus harm interoperability.

Even some patent lobbyists agree that there must be a compulsory license
for patents to technologies that are necessary for interoperability.  The
problem is how to delimit this.  Fundamentally all technologies have
interoperability aspects.  The belief that one can draw a limit here
reminds me of the belief that one can draw a line between source code and
object code, which was held by the German Minister of Justice in an
interview last year.  These beliefs seem to come from a naive lawyer's
viewpoint, and they create legal uncertainty.  Rather than letting the
patent system come to rest on a newly found set of rules, they just push
it to yet another frontier, where EPO boards of appeal will write lengthy
treatises on why their customers are not violating the interoperability
requirement "as such".

-phm