[vtkusers] SIFT legal issues

[David Doria]

On Tue, Dec 8, 2009 at 3:49 PM, Bill Lorensen <bill.lorensen at gmail.com> wrote:
> David,
>
> According to wikipedia:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scale-invariant_feature_transform
>
>  "The algorithm is patented in the US; the owner is the University of
> British Columbia.".
>
>  If this is true then we cannot include it in VTK or ITK.
>
> And you should be careful how you use it in your own work. You may be
> violating the patent.
>
> Bill

I thought that was the case about I/VTK.

However, what about the VJ?

I suppose I need a crash course in patent law, but am I really not
allowed to even use it in my own work? Surely people have published
papers saying "we then use SIFT to blah blah", right?

Thanks,

David