Re: GraphicsMagick & LZW compression

At 05:41 PM 6/17/03 -0500, Bob Friesenhahn wrote:
>On Tue, 17 Jun 2003, Glenn Randers-Pehrson wrote:
>Lets say that company X makes shavers in the US and that French
>company Y has a French patent on part of the shaver design, but
>doesn't hold this patent in the US.  Company X sells the shavers in
>the US.  An enterprising individual decides that he can make money by
>selling shavers from company X in France, independently purchases
>several boxes of shavers, and imports them into France for sale. Has
>company X infringed on company Y's patent if company X didn't print a
>warning on the carton that the design of the shaver is patented by
>company Y in France?  I don't think so, because company X didn't
>intentionally export its shavers to France.

Company X has no reasonable expectation that someone is going to
be selling their shavers in France.  They probably won't even work
there.  The person is probably going to have difficulty getting
them past customs, too.

We have a much more reasonable expectation that people will want
to download *Magick, and have a pretty good expectation that they
will not read any associated documentation.

>Since the burden is obviously on the importer (or exporter), I think
>that reasonable steps would be a note in the associated README on the
>ftp site, something key in the file name (e.g. "lzw") so the files can
>be identified, and a warning note in the installer licenses message.

Only an international patent lawyer, or a court case, can tell us
for sure.

Glenn


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