I think it may be impossible, as a professional software engineer, to not violate copyright/patent law. I am fuzzy on copyright versus patent, as IANAL, but as

I think it may be impossible, as a professional software engineer, to not violate copyright/patent law. I am fuzzy on copyright versus patent, as IANAL, but as example, have you ever used Quicksort? From coursework created by P. Brooks of Duke University, https://www2.cs.duke.edu/courses/fall03/cps182s/oldproj/pwb_1/Probits_Final.doc https://www2.cs.duke.edu/courses/fall03/cps182s/oldproj/pwb_...: "Though Patent #5175,857, "System for Sorting Records Having Sorted Strings Each Having a Plurality of Linked Elements Each Element Next Recording Address," has a highly specific title, it actually protects a brought process of sorting that is frequently used by different members of the computer science community— a linked-list implemented well-known algorithm Quicksort."