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It's weirder than that. If the court determines that you knew about a patent and decided to violate it anyway, the penalty is considerably harsher. That means t
by RyanMcGreal 14y ago
It's weirder than that. If the court determines that you knew about a patent and decided to violate it anyway, the penalty is considerably harsher. That means there is actually an incentive to remain as ignorant as possible about existing patents when developing new software.
- duskwuff 14y agoWhich ends up meaning that, rather than being a repository of useful inventions and techniques, the patent database ends up being a minefield -- as a software developer, for instance, you're best off avoiding looking at patents at all. (Since the ones that are old enough to have expired are now generally obvious in retrospect.)
- raphman 14y agoAck. IIRC Microsoft Research has the policy that researchers may never look at patents at all.
- josephcooney 14y agoNot just MS research. IIRR if you had something you thought was patentable you handed it off to them, and they did the leg work so you didn't become 'tainted' by looking at patents. Very weird.