<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0" ><tr><td valign="top" style="font: inherit;"><DIV>"learn about GRID computing when I was studying biology and the Linux file system, with future goals to write interesting open source programs. It's the future and I just hit a wall in<BR>the design process of writing code for my study."</DIV>
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<DIV>Jeremy,</DIV>
<DIV>For me the first question to be addressed is motive. Are you planning to distribute your work in such a way as to profit from it in a monetary sense? If you are not then the issue of patent is basically moot. The primary purpose of a patent is to protect the creator from intellectual and financial harm. If you are going to distribute the material give create to those that you know contributed, which you should do whether it is patented or not. If you are not going to have <SPAN>a financial</SPAN> benefit then you are not financially harming the other party. The caveat here is if the patent holder has produced the material in such a manner that they are being financially rewarded and you start to distribute something similar to it for free then you are hurting them financially. This is a very rough overview and I am sure any bad lawyer would add 50 pages to clarify what I have said.</DIV>
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<DIV>I do agree with Greg's proceed in ignorance concept. If you are not trying to infringe and do not intentional infringe you will mental proceed better and have a lesser case if one were to be brought. I may know that the speed limit is 35 but I will still try to go 45 (;>)</DIV>
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<DIV>FYI - I am not a practicing attorney and this was not my primary field of legal studies. It is JMHO. Ken//</DIV></td></tr></table>