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Testing the software (if it works) would infringe. | 131 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
More proof software is nothing but abstract
Authored by: celtic_hackr on Sunday, May 05 2013 @ 10:46 AM EDT
It's not the software that infringes. It the software running on a device with
another non-infringing software application. So it the fact that you bought two
non-infringing applications and are using them "together" to recreate
the supposed patent.

Got it?

So,
([non-infringing] Apache httpd) + ( [non-infringing] PHP's PEAR library) +
([non-infringing] website) = [infringing] website

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

More proof software is nothing but abstract
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 05 2013 @ 08:30 PM EDT
To play a bit of devils advocate here, if you take it as a given that it is possible for software running on a computer to infringe a patent, and the programming language it is programmed in to not infringe a patent (which must be really easy to find case law for), then it should be possible for a website to infringe a patent, presuming the web browser using the website accepts HTML5 and CSS 3 which are in combination turing complete. Further neither the server or browser developers should necessarily be involved as infringing as they only supplied the programming language interpreter, and a distribution method... well they aren't infringing unless EVERY website is infringing... I think arguing against patents being applied against web site owners here really ends up being arguing against a symptom of the cause, software patents. And if you just fix symptoms it seems to me that you will end up with a really complicated and illogical set of laws (ie android is infringing if they do X with their homescreen but firefox os isn't because firefox os does it with html as the programming language).

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

More proof software is nothing but abstract
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, May 06 2013 @ 01:23 AM EDT
I read about a case about five years back (I believe it was in Indiana or
Illinois) where a doctor who'd patented a particular surgical procedure was
suing the author of a book that described the patented procedure in detail. I
really wanted to follow the case as, to me, it seemed that such description of a
patent is clearly non-infringing -- the entire purpose of the patent system is
to promote such disclosure.

My attempts to locate any court records failed, and I don't know whether the
case was dropped or dismissed or adjudicated one way or the other. Nonetheless,
I feel the circumstances of this case were very analogous to software patents;
after all, software merely describes the steps that are to be followed to
accomplish a process. Even if the process itself is "legitimately"
patented, software should never be considered infringing*.


* The Software Freedom Law Center has often made the claim that program *source
code* is not patentable. Personally, I see no legally arguable distinction
between source code and machine code (which is just source code for a different
target).

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Testing the software (if it works) would infringe.
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, May 06 2013 @ 05:00 PM EDT
But the patent owners might not be able to prove that the software developers
tested it. Especially if its Microsoft.

If software were patentable, then claims would be written so that writing or
selling the software infringed the claims.

But, since we live in a world according to YOUR rules, "software per
se" is not patentable. So, patent claims are written to cover methods of
doing things. So, one has to do those things according to the claimed method to
infringe. So, users get sued.

You made your bed....

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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