[res0nat0r]

How is it possible to determine if you've violated a random patent from somewhere on the internet via a small snippet of customized auto-generated code?

Does everyone in this thread contact their lawyers after cutting and pasting a mergesort example from Stackoverflow that they've modified to fit their needs? Seems folks are reaching a bit.

[IncRnd]

For that very reason, many companies have policies that forbid copying code from online (especially from StackOverflow).

[dlubarov]

That mitigates copyright concerns, but patent infringement can occur even if the idea was independently rediscovered.

[IncRnd]

I was answering a specific question, "How is it possible to determine if you've violated a random patent from somewhere on the internet via a small snippet of customized auto-generated code?" The answer is that many companies have forbidden that specific action in order to remove the risk from that action.

You are expanding the discussion, which is great, but that doesn't apply in answer to that specific question.

There are answers in response to your question, however. For example, many companies use software for scanning and composition analysis that determines the provenance and licensing requirements of software. Then, remediation steps are taken.

[dlubarov]

Not sure what you're getting at. Are you suggesting that independent discovery is a defense against patents? Or are you clear that it isn't a defense, but just arguing that something from the internet is more likely to be patented than something independently invented in-house? Maybe that's true, but it doesn't really answer the question of

> How is it possible to determine if you've violated a random patent from somewhere on the internet via a small snippet of customized auto-generated code?

The only real answer is a patent search.

[IncRnd]

There are different ways to handle risk, such as avoidance, reduction, transfersal, acceptance. I was answering a specific question as to how people manage risk in a given situation. In answer I related how companies will reduce the risk. I was not talking about general cases of how to defend against the risk of patents but a specific case as to reducing the risk of adding externally found code into a product.

My answer described literally what many companies do today. It was not a theoretical pie in the sky answer or a discussion about patent IP.

To restate, the real-world answer I gave for, "How is it possible to determine if you've violated a random patent from somewhere on the internet via a small snippet of customized auto-generated code?" is often "Do not take code from the Internet."