From srctran@world.std.com  Fri Oct 13 19:36:59 2000
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 15:36:59 -0400 (EDT)
From: Gregory Aharonian srctran@world.std.com
Subject: [Patents] simple questions

Hartmut writes:
>... such as writing modules in countries such as India or the Philippines
>where patents are unlikely to be asserted and then putting them together
>here.  Thus they hope to the shooting line.

If you wonder why I don't pay much attention to your comments about
German court decisions, it is because of comments like this one above
that you take seriously.

It would not matter if someone developed software on the Moon or Mars
or at the ends of the universe, if they wanted to escape US or European
patent infringement.  Once the software hits the shores of the US, it
becomes subject to charges of infringing any relevant US patents.  So
any company (and I hope you didn't advise them to do so) writing code
in India or Philippines to escape patent infringement in the US or
Europe is completely wasting its time - it is a totally invalid defensive
patenting strategy.

And each time you raise the issue of some German court decision hostile
to software patents, I on the other side of the Atlantic can raise the
issue of some American court devision supportive of software patents.
They cancel each other out, unless you can give me a good proof that
the legal analysis capabilities of German judges is better than that
of American judges.  This issue is not going to be decided by relying
on some specific court decision.  If that is your strategy, you are
going to lose.

Greg Aharonian




