>> With patents it doesn't matter whether you read their code or not: you're screwed in any case. > Okay, forget the rest and focus on this: you need to famili

>> With patents it doesn't matter whether you read their code or not: you're screwed in any case. > Okay, forget the rest and focus on this: you need to familiarize yourself with the concepts of willful infringement and treble damages. > [...] > Whether the code you've read is patented or not is actually trivia. Whether you knew it was covered by a specific patent is important. So we're in agreement then? :) Yes, good point about knowingly infringing a patent, but, as I said (or meant to say), reading or not reading the source code has no effect on the patent situation. (But I'm not a lawyer either, so what do I know.)