Re: [ccp4bb]: License required for deposited structures!

[Gerard DVD Kleywegt <gerard@xray.bmc.uu.se>]

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>    Well, as you say you cannot hand out for free something that is patented, 

well, yes - this is the fundamental principle underlying patenting - it
protects the rights of the inventor (for, say, 20 years) while not impeding
further research by keeping discoveries hidden. the only one who can hand out
patented things for free is the owner of the patent

> so patents _do_ apply to non-commercial products. This is a crucial problem 
> for free software, of which our community is hungry for.

can you give examples of cases where this really is a problem ? the only
example i can think of is software that generates GIF images - so you don't
use GIFs, you use PNGs instead. but what patented software (components) would
you want to use in crystallographic software ?

--dvd (*)

ps: maybe we should leave the rest of the discussion to the root of all evil
(lawyers) on this mirthful first day of april

(*) "DVD" is undoubtedly a (registered ?) trademark of some company or other.
so sue me (**)

(**) just kidding !

******************************************************************
                        Gerard J.  Kleywegt
    [Research Fellow of the Royal  Swedish Academy of Sciences]
Dept. of Cell & Molecular Biology  University of Uppsala
                Biomedical Centre  Box 596
                SE-751 24 Uppsala  SWEDEN

    http://xray.bmc.uu.se/gerard/  mailto:gerard@xray.bmc.uu.se
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