Re: Not-so-mass bug filing for the patented IDEA algorithm

[Matthias Julius <lists@julius-net.net>]

Steve Langasek <vorlon@debian.org> writes:

> Er, by definition a patent is supposed to include a complete description of
> the invention that would permit a third-party to reimplement the invention,
> in exchange for granting the inventor exclusive rights to the invention for
> a limited time.  Would you argue that distributing copies of the patent
> application is infringement, too?

While you are probably free to distribute the description you are not
free to distribute an implementation of the technology claimed by the
patent.  You can implement it but you can not distribute the
implementation.

Matthias