Re: [Freetype] LoadGlyph Time

[Lars Clausen]

On Wed, 01 May 2002, David Turner wrote:
> Hi James,
> 
> "James H. Cloos Jr." a écrit :
[...]
>> Or do patent issues start popping up with such optimiaztions?
>>
> Nope, the patents protect the _result_ of computations, not the
> way they're done. Otherwise, we would have side-stepped them for
> long by now :-)

I believe patents are intended to protected specific _ways_ of doing
things, not the results.  For instance, you could patent a process for
extracting a mineral from rock, but if somebody makes a totally different
process for extracting the same mineral, they're not covered by that
patent.

Of course, the US patent system is totally fscked up, so there's a long
distance from 'are intended to' to 'are used to'.  And none of us here (I
think) have the time and money to fight such a battle.

-Lars

-- 
Lars Clausen (http://shasta.cs.uiuc.edu/~lrclause)| Hårdgrim of Numenor
"I do not agree with a word that you say, but I   |----------------------------
will defend to the death your right to say it."   | Where are we going, and
    --Evelyn Beatrice Hall paraphrasing Voltaire  | what's with the handbasket?