Re: [Patents] Hardware N Software

[PILCH Hartmut <phm@a2e.de>]

> Hartmut wrongly writes:
> >You can be sued if you publish the software on the Internet.
>
> If the software patent actually includes the sorce code
> close, it is impossible to get sued for publishing the software on
> the Internet, since it is already published on the Internet - i.e.,
> the PTO's online patent database.

I am not talking about software that is disclosed in some patent but
software that I may have written myself and want to publish on the
internet.

You know that very well, I think.

> And if you publish the source code on the Internet from a site that is
> in a country where there is no corresponding patent, you also definitely
> cannot be sued

Without consenting to the above (which is not to the point anyway), I am
glad to find that you confirm my point:  if you publish software (be it
source or object code or both) on the Internet from a site that is in a
country where there is a corresponding patent, you can get sued.

Previously a "downloadability test" has been proposed here.  If the
infringing thing is downloadable, we have a software patent and with it
a violation of the freedom of speech.

Only morally depravated people will engage in pushing such a thing, and
this is actually the picture that is being confirmed every day in
discussions on this list and elsewhere.  No honest people are advocating
software patents.  It is therefore very hard to organise a constructive
podium discussion on this subject.

-- 
Hartmut Pilch                                          http://phm.ffii.org/
Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation       http://swpat.ffii.org/
100,000 signatures against software patents      http://www.noepatents.org/