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Robert Hart wrote:
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cite="mid769F37AB357BF741BC9FD2057F261832E9EEA0@ex-be03.burohappold.com"
type="cite">
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<pre wrap="">I think my point is I'd rather nobody on the list knew anything about
</pre>
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<pre wrap=""><!---->any > patents that might or might not be related to something we're
doing.
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<pre wrap="">Mostly this is because:
a) Half the time we don't know what the patent is actually for
b) We have no real way of assessing whether or not we're infringing
c) We have no sensible way of determining whether, if we are
</pre>
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<pre wrap=""><!---->infringing,
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<pre wrap="">the patent stands a chance of being valid
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<pre wrap=""><!---->
Patents don't work like that. You are infringing the patent whether you
know about it or not, and can get asked to pay up, or cease infringement
immediately. I'd hate to be in a situation where we had to cease
distribution of any of our data because it's storage, retrieval, or
display was dependant on any potentially patented technology.
Given that, and the goals of the project, it would seem that
understanding of all relevant patents should be very high up on our list
of priorities!
Perhaps in the same way we have come to some sort of agreement with
Multimap and Yahoo (of which I'm unsure of the details) we could come to
agreements with relevant patent holders?
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You're missing the point.<br>
<br>
Ignorance is no defence... this is true.<br>
That isn't to say ignorance isn't an advantage.<br>
What you have to understand here is that the level of knowledge you
would need to "understand all relevant patents" is way beyond anything
you're going to manage if not a full-time army, that the work in coding
around every single <i>possible</i> infringement is way beyond all
possible hope, that the lawyers required to actually achieve any useful
narrowing of this are way, way too expensive for this project.<br>
And ignorance of a patent is an <i>extremely</i> useful piece of
ammunition if you stand any chance of fighting the validity of a
patent. It helps imply the patent may have been obvious. And from the
other side of the coin, as soon as you start getting a full knowledge
of the patent space, you cease to be an untainted mind, and are
extremely unlikely to be able to prove you didn't get your idea from a
patent itself.<br>
And you <i>will</i> miss things, which puts you in the same position
as we originally started with, just after spending thousands of hours
coding round <i>potential</i> problems, which due to that lack of
experts in the field may have been unnecessary anyway.<br>
<br>
You can ask Yahoo, Google, NavTeq, TeleAtlas, whoever, to give a
blanket license of their portfolios to OSM if you like. They'll
probably say no, or ask to negotiate with your lawyers. For each one
that says yes there's less patents to not know about.<br>
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