Re: MP3 decoder packaged with XMMS
Michael K. Edwards wrote:
> The Federal
> Circuit, en banc, characterized one defendant's reliance on a similar
> statistic (offered by their counsel and apparently relied on in good
> faith to the extent that that means anything) as "flagrant disregard
> of presumptively valid patents without analysis" -- and I can find no
> better words for it.
I am not inclined to give any weight to the Federal Circuit statement you
quoted given that it seems to be from before the rejection of the "No legal
opinion == wilful infringement" assumption made by that Circuit. As a matter
of fact, a ridiculously large number of the patents granted by the US Patent
Office these days are obviously invalid.
>But it's still no basis
>for a claim that you have, or anyone else has, exercised "due care"
>with regard to any particular patent, let alone a suite of dozens that
>has withstood the kind of scrutiny that Fraunhofer's has.
Perhaps "due care" would be sufficiently exercised by the following: Looking
at the "mp3 patent" titles, none of them claim to cover decoding.
Anyway, Fraunhofer's patents are all invalid in Europe under the European
Patent Convention, which prohibits patents on mathematics. Perhaps it's time
to revive non-US for distribution of mp3 decoders.
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