23. Detecting Patent Infringement

In this chapter I discuss techniques for detecting whether a program infringes on a patent. Unlike the detection of copyright infringement, the detection of patent infringement has few hard-and-fast rules. Patents can cover broad technologies and categories of software, or they can cover a small individual function within a program. In this chapter I share my experience and the general process that we have at my consulting company, Zeidman Consulting, for going about this work.