Software Patents and the Penguin

Ken Brown opines in Patents and the Penguin:

"The software patent is viewed by both proponents and detractors of Linux as a serious threat to the well-being, and perhaps the survival, of the Linux community. Ironically, this is not only the view of competitors that are eying Linux customers, but leadership within the Linux community itself. While much of the debate regarding Linux and its accompanying license, the General Public License, or GPL, focuses on the provisioning of copyrights, a growing number of observers point to the growing popularity of software patents as a far bigger concern.

There is not a process in place that efficiently screens code for patents before it is contributed to the GPL. There is no master list of software patents held that claim an impact or relevance to open source software. This means that to do a thorough patent check on a software idea, it would have to be done individually or by a law firm. This is not a problem unless, you a downloader does not take potential patent infringement seriously. Unfortunately, some developers download open source under the assumption the software is 100% protected under the GPL’s provisioning for copyright and patent transfer. Obviously this is a significant accident waiting to happen. If any downloaded GPL’ed software used for a commercial application infringes upon a currently patented software product, any number of users and entities could face civil damages."