S3 texture compression patent

[Mike Hearn]

On Fri, 2003-10-17 at 17:36, Geoff Thorpe wrote:
> On October 17, 2003 11:56 am, Mike Hearn wrote:
> > In future please do not raise patents on this list. What we don't know,
> > can't hurt us (as much).
> 
> IANAL, but I beg to differ.

I'm not either, but the advice I gave is based on similar discussions on
lkml, which did have lawyers involved (at least, at some point).

> First, Wine should be reasonably well protected against patent 
> infringement, because (and I mean this in the nicest way possible) it 
> doesn't actually *do* very much that could infringe. 

If only that were the case. In practice, I expect we have to implement
things covered by patents, even if it is only things like DirectMusic,
techniques in D3D - hell, if MS can get a patent on NTFS they can get a
patent on anything.

> Secondly, in any rare instance where Wine itself *might* infringe on 
> patents, the best course of action is to force the worms out of the 
> intestines. 

We probably cannot do that. If Microsoft implement a technology, so must
we, it is inevitable. The reasoning is simple: the penalties for patent
infringements are much higher if it can be shown you knew about the
patent but ignored it.

> Patent 
> holders, for better or worse, must enforce their IP for it to remain 
> valid. 

I think you're thinking of trademarks. You do not need to enforce
patents to keep them.

thanks -mike