[IronPython] Patent concerns

[John J Lee]

On Fri, 1 Jun 2007, Curt Hagenlocher wrote:
[...]
> The originally-expressed concern was that looking at the IronPython source
> code might "contaminate" a developer such that, if the same developer later
> worked on a different project with similar architecture, it might open that
> project up to claims of violating a Microsoft patent.
>
> I am not a lawyer, but this seems highly unlikely.  "Independent
> rediscovery" does not protect you from claims of patent infringement, only
> from copyright infringement.
[...]

Right.

However, I hear that intentional patent infringement is considered more 
serious than inadvertent patent infringement, and that Microsoft employees 
have interpreted the large number of alleged patent infringements in free 
and open source software as evidence of at least some of them being 
intentional:

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/05/28/100033867/index.htm

> "This is not a case of some accidental, unknowing infringement,"
> Gutierrez asserts. "There is an overwhelming number of patents being
> infringed."


I'm unsure whether having deliberately avoided source code that you 
believe to contain patented methods might be interpreted as evidence of 
deliberate infringement or as evidence of the lack of it.  But it would 
seem plausible that one's actions and statements about reading source code 
*can* have some effect on the seriousness of patent infringements, even if 
they never make the difference between an infringement having occurred or 
not.


John