No, the IP is still protected. You are then entering territory where you may quickly get sued (sure , that always depends whether the other party has enough money or interest to sue you; but IP has a lot to do with ethics as well; do you really want to STEAL from other people, are you willing to stoop down to the level of a burglar or worse, how would you feel if that IP would have been yours etc etc.)
But that would only be a problem if OP wanted to sell the result.
Only using the stuff himself, as he stated, should be totally fine.
And the point is exactly, that doesn’t steal (at least if you for a moment don’t regard based on what LLMs are trained…), but use something different instead.
Nope, incorrect. - Personal Use ≠ Fair Use: While some jurisdictions have “fair use” or “fair dealing” exceptions (e.g., for criticism, education, or parody), personal use alone does not automatically qualify as fair use! In this case, the person that takes the IP, is using it for its own purposes, and that is stealing, It is like me taking your bike, and using it for my own transportation, Without selling it to somebody else.
It is like me taking your bike, and using it for my own transportation
No, OP’s 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.
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 ;-)
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…)
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.
No, the IP is still protected. You are then entering territory where you may quickly get sued (sure , that always depends whether the other party has enough money or interest to sue you; but IP has a lot to do with ethics as well; do you really want to STEAL from other people, are you willing to stoop down to the level of a burglar or worse, how would you feel if that IP would have been yours etc etc.)
But that would only be a problem if OP wanted to sell the result.
Only using the stuff himself, as he stated, should be totally fine.
And the point is exactly, that doesn’t steal (at least if you for a moment don’t regard based on what LLMs are trained…), but use something different instead.
Nope, incorrect. - Personal Use ≠ Fair Use: While some jurisdictions have “fair use” or “fair dealing” exceptions (e.g., for criticism, education, or parody), personal use alone does not automatically qualify as fair use! In this case, the person that takes the IP, is using it for its own purposes, and that is stealing, It is like me taking your bike, and using it for my own transportation, Without selling it to somebody else.
No, OP’s 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.
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 ;-)
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…)
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.
I fully agree with all your points. IP and patent infringement is intriguing and sometimes dangerous territory, which shouldn’t be taken lightly.