To further stretch that metaphor, it’s like I manufacture bikes, and you copy one of my designs to build a single unit for yourself.
Also, I imagine it would be hard to discover and then prove that the app someone is using on their own machine is a clone of yours.
Also also, the validity of software patents heavily depends on your jurisdiction.
Also also also, there’s a lot of word processors and photo editors out there. The usecase of an app would have to be incredibly specific to even try and prove a clone is infringing on anything. If it’s a library - reinplementing a function in your own (or a LLM’s) code is unlikely to be a problem.
I don’t trust current LLMs to do this well, or in an affordable way, but if you somehow manage it, I don’t think the original manufacturer would have an easy time sueing you.
Multiplexer@discuss.tchncs.de 2 weeks ago
No, OPs example is not.
Rather it’s like you having seen me riding a bike and based on that building a two-wheeled device behaving in a similar way for yourself.
notsosure@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Good luck, you will find enlightenment I’m sure. I have been involved in IP litigation for about 30 years in industry, and a lot of colleagues argued the way you guys are doing, it didn’t end well ;-)
Multiplexer@discuss.tchncs.de 2 weeks ago
I think, that is the important point here.
A private person letting Claude Code generate a spreadsheet behaving like Excel that they then uses to categorize their tea bag collection, is as far from any “industry” as possible.
But even if a Company is doing it… Say, they wrote their own chat app that behaves like MS Teams and use it internally… What are the potential allegations Microsoft could raise?
(One additional info: I’m an European, while your use of the legal term “fair use” tells me that you are likely from the US - in Europe there is no way to patent “business processes” like the behaviour of an interface…)