> if I look at what is patented and come to the conclusion that I don't > violate a patent, but I actually do, then I face a much greater > liability for infringing the patent than I would if I didn't even bother > to look.
I don't think so (but I'm not a patent attorney). If you can put your hand on a Bible and swear that you did not think you were infringing, then it's not willful infringement, AFAIK. Also, in about 99% of all cases, all you would be looking at would be a cease-and-desist: you would have to re-write the code to be non-infringing, no other penalty. And I garbled my baby in my previous post. Meant to say: we should not throw out the baby of software patents with the bath water of the flaws in the (entire) patent system. Charles -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of McKown, John Sent: Wednesday, December 13, 2006 2:20 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: IBM sues maker of Intel-based Mainframe clones ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
