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by alanctgardner2 4974 days ago
You could accidentally create a patented algorithm in hardware just as easily in hardware. The trick is that you wouldn't be designing an 'MPEG4 hardware decoder', but you'd think 'oh, wavelet compression in an ASIC, how novel'. Then you'd be infringing the patent. It's not an issue of accidentally using, it's more an issue of accidentally developing in parallel.