Patent Liability Insurance

[John Cowan]

Lawrence Rosen wrote:

> OTOH, damages based on *not* using reasonably available technology to
> fix a bug might (?) be appropriate in some circumstances. I don't see
> that the "DMCA or the rights of American Intellectual Property owners"
> justify that remedy, though.

This business sounds like a sort of funhouse-mirror version of the
well-known case (whose name has slipped my mind) establishing that it
was negligent in a boat's owner not to carry radio for the purpose of
getting weather warnings, although it was not common practice at the
time.  In that case the boat was tied up at a dock too small for it,
and basically smashed the dock during the storm; the dock's owner sued
and won.

If, instead, some particular manufacturer of radios had sued the boat
owners for failure to use its product, then we'd be on all fours.

-- 
John Cowan  cowan at ccil.org  http://ccil.org/~cowan
If he has seen farther than others,
        it is because he is standing on a stack of dwarves.
                --Mike Champion, describing Tim Berners-Lee (adapted)