Re: legal status of David Brownell's zcip code

On Tue, 2004-12-21 at 20:39 -0800, David Brownell wrote:
> On Tuesday 21 December 2004 8:09 pm, Andreas Hofmeister wrote:
> >
> > About date of patent expiry see
> > http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=2434
> 
> I read that differently than you did:  those patents
> fall into the "20 years from filing" (1985) clause,
> so they get extensions like the RSA patent.  (Or like
> Mickey Mouse, but not so extreme!)  August 2005.
> 
> I'll let y'all know what my query to the Apple Legal
> folk turns up.  They might just grant a ZeroCost IP
> license usable with the ZeroConf IP code ... ;)

For the record, in future situations, one shouldn't actively seek out
attention on legal issues, or even look for patents.  Once you know
about a patent then yes you are legally responsible to seek permission
to use it.  However, it is pretty much impossible to write _any_ program
without hitting someone's patent, so seeking them out is never, ever a
good idea.  Also, for the record, Apple has been very, very closed to
opening up patents for FOSS software - good luck getting a FOSS
compatible license from them on any of their patents.  ;-)

> 
> - Dave
> 
> 
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-- 
Sean Middleditch <[email protected]>
AwesomePlay Productions, Inc.



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