[linux-audio-dev] Patents on some Linux OS code

[Paul Brossier]

On Thu, Dec 09, 2004 at 05:39:50PM +1100, Erik de Castro Lopo wrote:
> 
> Look, the patenting of stupid things is to be encouraged as strongly as
> possible. The US (and other) patent systems will soon colapse under their
> own weight and then be discarded. 
> 
> Apart from encouraging stupid patents, the best thing you can do is ignore
> it completely. When and if you get a cease and desist letter you do the
> following:
> 
>   0) Get the patent holder to provide enough information for you to
>      figure out if you might infinge or not.
> 
>   1) If you are out of jurisdiction you may want to disregard the
>      patent anyway.
> 
>   2) Get the patent documents and see if the patent can be challenged.
> 
>   3) If you think it can be challenged, state so publicly in the web 
>      page for the software and tell the patent holder that you will 
>      challenge the patent validity if they try to bring it to court.
> 
>   4) If it can't be overturned, say sorry to the patent holder and pull
>      the software for the 2-3 weeks it takes to reimplement the code
>      working around the patent.
> 

i like this approach, especially the 'encouraging stupid ones'.

a few weeks ago, i looked at Yin, an f0 estimation algorithm. i
wrote to the author to know if it was ok to release it under the
GPL. he replied 'the algorithm is patented but i think there
should be no problem'. i am not qualified to judge on point 2,
but i seriously doubt on its validity, besides we do not have
software patents in Europe. and i went to point 3 (updated):
  http://aubio.piem.org/news/YIN_patented_and_GPL.html 

now i wonder when someone will get a patent on making additions.

bye, paul