Official compiler

[Chris Wright via Digitalmars-d]

On Fri, 19 Feb 2016 05:29:20 +0000, Ola Fosheim Grøstad wrote:

> On Thursday, 18 February 2016 at 23:42:11 UTC, Chris Wright wrote:
>> There are damages for patent infringement. There are higher damages for
>> willful infringement.
> 
> Iff you use it as a means for production. There is nothing illegal about
> implementing patented techniques in source code (i.e. describing them)
> and distributing it.

That depends on where the patent was filed and where the lawsuit is being 
executed.

>> regarding GCC. And thanks to how software patents generally are, it'd
>> probably be regarding something that most C/C++ compilers need to
>> implement and the most obvious implementation for that feature.
> 
> If that is the case then there will be prior art that predates the
> patent.

Not if it's for a feature added to a C++ standard after the patent was 
filed. Not if it's for a feature that modern compilers consider standard 
but wasn't standard before the patent was created. Not if it's in a 
jurisdiction that uses first-to-file rather than first-to-invent.