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Re: RAR under linux: any alternative?



Seth Goodman writes:
> If someone violates your patent and you fail to defend it in any
> meaningful way, you are considered to have abandoned the patent and it
> becomes effectively void.

This is not true.  You are confounding patents and trademarks.

> My non-lawyer understanding is that for all intents and purposes, if a
> patent is widely ignored and the patent owner neither warns the
> infringers nor initiates legal action against any of them, you are pretty
> safe doing what everyone else is doing.

Said patent owner might not be awarded damages for past infringement but he
can still start enforcing his patent.  He _might_ lose his patent if it can
be shown that he misused it, but I don't think mere non-enforcement
qualifies.
-- 
John Hasler



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