On Wednesday 12 August 2009, Harold Fuchs wrote: >Keith Clark wrote: >> On Wed, 2009-08-12 at 13:48 -0400, Gene Heskett wrote: >>> On Wednesday 12 August 2009, James Knott wrote: >>>> http://blog.seattlepi.com/microsoft/archives/176223.asp?from=blog_last3 >>> >>> Interesting. And where does this leave OOo? Are they next on the hit >>> list? >> >> As OO.o is free, how can they stop it from being sold? > >I'm not a lawyer but simple logic suggests that if OOo is proved to have >infringed a valid patent, the fact that it's free should not make any >difference. Morally, perhaps. Legally, no. Otherwise some charitable >institution could, with complete impunity, make patented drugs and give >them away to third world countries.
Which I might remind this list has in fact been done with at least one of the HIV drugs. Not given away, but priced at a very small fraction of the cost of the big name branded drug, cheap enough to be used by the millions of doses by public health bodies in both South America and Africa. Big US Pharma used their patents on it to extract profits far beyond just recovering their R&D. The violating maker, in South America, effectively told our Ambassador they would not honor any patents granted by the USPTO as it was badly broken and regulated. And their government confirmed it. All quietly swept under the rug in terms of publicity because it sets a very bad example. How much one could find with a google search today I have NDI, I just recall reading about it at the time, now about half a decade or so back up the log. -- Cheers, Gene "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) The NRA is offering FREE Associate memberships to anyone who wants them. <https://www.nrahq.org/nrabonus/accept-membership.asp> The first time, it's a KLUDGE! The second, a trick. Later, it's a well-established technique! -- Mike Broido, Intermetrics --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
