Eero Ahonen wrote:
> Nasty, I'd say. But the practice will (unfortunately) show us that lack 
> of knowledge is - once again - not an excuse.

Unfortunately, a lot of this is "legal should know" and not "practically 
should know."

For example, in the US, actually registering the copyright means 
everyone "should know" it's copyrighted. After all, it's available from 
the copyright office if you want to check.  Once it's registered, if 
someone comes up with the same thing independently, they have to be able 
to prove they *didn't* copy it, rather than the copyright holder proving 
they *did* copy it.

Filing a patent means everyone "should know" the thing's patented. After 
all, you could have done a patent search, and the patents are all public 
knowledge. The fact that a serious patent search costs big money doesn't 
matter - you're still in trouble because you "should have known" you 
were building something already patented.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     "That's pretty. Where's that?"
          "It's the Age of Channelwood."
     "We should go there on vacation some time."

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