IANAL This is the difference between patents and copyright. A mechanism that is patented can not be implemented by anyone. It doesn't matter if they did or di

IANAL This is the difference between patents and copyright. A mechanism that is patented can not be implemented by anyone. It doesn't matter if they did or did not read your source, they cannot implement it. It doesn't even matter if they knew the patent existed or that even that it had been done before. Copyright is a lot more forgiving. It only covers the exact implementation. Doing a clean room implemation means you will write different code that does the exact or very similar thing.