[IPOL discuss] Patents and IPOL code : info from the lawyers

[Nicolas Limare]

Hi all,

I was attending this week the "law" track of the Libre Software
Meeting in Strasbourg. Most of the discussions were about the legal
aspects of free software licenses, with some discussions about
patents.
-> http://2011.rmll.info/-Droit-du-Libre-

Here is the information I collected about software patents from the
presentations and direct discussions with lawyers. All is about the
French and European law, the only legal background relevant for IPOL:

0. Software is not patentable in Europe. The European Patent
   Convention excludes scientific theories, mathematics and
   software. The interpretation by courts of "what is a software" is
   unclear, and the European Patent Office accepts the registration of
   patents on computing devices running a software, but all the
   lawyers here told me none of these patents can stand in court.

So, theoretically there is no patent en algorithms and IPOL shouldn't
have to care about it. But the validity of software patents are a hot
topic and enforcing their non-patentability requires to go to court,
and we may not want to. So, ignoring this issue and supposing that
software patents would be patentable...

1. A patent protects an idea, not an implementation. For us, a
   patent claims to protect the algorithm. Restrictions derived
   from this patent would apply to any implementation of the
   algorithm, a source code performing the same method or, why not, a
   hardware mechanical device.

2. The patent holder has the exclusive right to produce or license
   devices executing the algorithm. Running a compiled program
   implementing the algorithm is an infraction, if it involves a
   prejudice to the commercial exploitation of the invention.

3. Implementing the patented algorithm is similar to the simple
   translation of the patent text into a programming language, but
   distributing it can also be considered a patent infringement by
   distribution of means.

4. The patent laws have an exception for "research and
   experimentation". Thus, IPOL can describe, implement and use
   patented algorithms without worrying. We can also distribute the
   source code, "for research only" if we want to stay on the safe
   side.

-- 
Nicolas LIMARE - CMLA - ENS Cachan    http://www.cmla.ens-cachan.fr/~limare/
IPOL - image processing on line                          http://www.ipol.im/
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