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Of particular concern to the open source movement (which of course is an ultimate form of open standard) are the conditions meant to discourage open standards. For instance draconian prohibitions on reverse-engineering.

I'm trying to address at least that problem in the Open Patent License under development at www.openpatents.org. For instance, in order to be able to (given some other conditions) potentially use any of the software patents of everyone who has licensed all their software patents under one of the Options of this agreement, not only do you have to similarly license all your software patents as well, but you also have to license other "patent-like" IP that covers things such as look & feel copyrights and reverse engineering restrictions.

So even if reading were illegal, that is if reverse engineering restrictions were valid, a company that needed to use hundreds of patents potentially freely available to them if they were to agree to that sort of Option of the Open Patent License, would probably find it cheaper agree to one of those Options rather than both attempt to use legal means to hide their product from the eyes of their customers and license all the patents they need.

As long as there's a way to opt-out of the patent system and UCITA restrictions among agreeing participants, I'm guessing that most companies will find it cheaper to opt-out of those restrictions when possible when faced with the alternative of endlessly charging each other for red tape.

(International legal reform getting rid of these sorts of restrictions on reading and thinking would be a much better answer, but I think convincing businesses to save money and increase stability and growth might be an easier solution for the short term.)

Of particular concern to the open source movement (which of course is an ultimate form of open standard) are the conditions meant to discourage open standards. For instance draconian prohibitions on reverse-engineering.

I'm trying to address at least that problem in the Open Patent License under development at www.openpatents.org. For instance, in order to be able to (given some other conditions) potentially use any of the software patents of everyone who has licensed all their software patents under one of the Options of this agreement, not only do you have to similarly license all your software patents as well, but you also have to license other "patent-like" IP that covers things such as look & feel copyrights and reverse engineering restrictions.

So even if reading were illegal, that is if reverse engineering restrictions were valid, a company that needed to use hundreds of patents potentially freely available to them if they were to agree to that sort of Option of the Open Patent License, would probably find it cheaper agree to one of those Options rather than both attempt to use legal means to hide their product from the eyes of their customers and license all the patents they need.

As long as there's a way to opt-out of the patent system and UCITA restrictions among agreeing participants, I'm guessing that most companies will find it cheaper to opt-out of those restrictions when possible when faced with the alternative of endlessly charging each other for red tape.

(International legal reform getting rid of these sorts of restrictions on reading and thinking would be a much better answer, but I think convincing businesses to save money and increase stability and growth might be an easier solution for the short term.)

An open patent pool could be made to work, if there are rules such as: you can use all the pool's patents of a specific type (e.g. software patents) only if you give all your patents of that type to the pool. That way your patents are still a defense against others' patents.

That's one of the types of Open Patent Pools I want the Open Patent License at www.openpatents.org to make available.

Anyone who's interested in helping edit the license during the development stage please join the mailing list.

An open patent pool could be made to work, if there are rules such as: you can use all the pool's patents of a specific type (e.g. software patents) only if you give all your patents of that type to the pool. That way your patents are still a defense against others' patents.

That's one of the types of Open Patent Pools I want the Open Patent License at www.openpatents.org to make available.

Anyone who's interested in helping edit the license during the development stage please join the mailing list.

An open patent pool could be made to work, if there are rules such as: you can use all the pool's patents of a specific type (e.g. software patents) only if you give all your patents of that type to the pool. That way your patents are still a defense against others' patents.

That's one of the types of Open Patent Pools I want the Open Patent License at www.openpatents.org to make available.

Anyone who's interested in helping edit the license during the development stage please join the mailing list.

Why is it so hard to imagine "Open Source" patents along the lines of the GPL?

That is what I am trying to do with the Open Patent License at www.openpatents.org/.

Here is the article I replied with:

Amazon is unquestionably an innovative company, given a definition of "innovation" that refers to implementation of ideas as opposed to merely theorizing about and coming up with ideas. (Like an Open Source development "show me the source" request versus long-winded non-productive discussions.) It's their excellent implementations both in programming and in management that makes them an otherwise excellent group to do business with and makes amazon.com such a well-run site.

But the fact that they spam their customers with an opt-out list instead of an opt-in list, and the fact that they're offensively using their patents against someone else, means I simply won't do business with them until both problems are resolved.

Other than those two things, I think they're a fine, upstanding business; however, when they do either or both things, they instantly become in my mind a business with questionable ethics, and I will simply not purchase from them.

Both problems are eminently solvable, and from the conversation it seems that Bezos would possibly consider softening his stance on licensing and enforcement of Amazon's patents. Now if both problems were solved, I would remove Amazon from my personal blacklist, and I would be vastly relieved after having done so. It really bothers me when a company that does so many things right, and does so many things well, has just a few minor (in that they are easily solvable) problems that mean I simply can't in good conscious deal with them. I have no qualms about a badly-run company that consistently provides poor quality service or shoddy merchandise going out of business; on the contrary, it's one of the most important things about economic stability that bad businesses fail. But I hate to see an otherwise well-run business try to slit it's own throat like this. I'd love to see them fix both problems, so that we can all put their past behind us in Internet time, so to speak.

That being said, I would suggest two solutions:

On the spam issue, Amazon should switch from an opt-out spam list to an opt-in spam list. It's an easy thing to do technically, and it would buy them goodwill. That's pretty much all there is to the spam issue, and since it's also off-topic, I'll not mention it again in this message.

On the patents issue, I would ask that Bezos seriously consider a patent cross-license agreement. I have to admit to a strong personal bias in this area, because I want to promote the Open Patent License in progress at www.openpatents.org. (Plug, plug.)

Without boring everyone with the details of the Open Patent License, (and if you read through it, you'll find that it can be boring to a mind-numbing extent--I welcome any help at improving it, BTW), one of its Options allows you to license all your software patents to everyone who similarly licenses theirs, allowing the patents to be incorporated into products or processes which only incorporate compatibly-licensed covered patent-ish IP. You still otherwise keep your patents, and you still keep the defensive value of them, but you'll be gaining the use of a growing pool of patents that can be used among participants' Open Patent products and services. (The patents can also be used in Open Source code given some conditions.)

Bezos says one of the reasons he's acquiring patents is for defense against future patent lawsuits. This license will help him there.

Granted, it won't help him against Barnes & Noble if they decide to sue him again for saying he has a greater market capitalization than they do, for instance, or for any other sort of almost-frivolous non-patent-related lawsuit, especially if Barnes & Noble agress to a compatible Option of the license. But, it can help him against Wal-Mart, because if Amazon agreed to the license-all-software-patents option and didn't otherwise license it's patents to Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart wouldn't be able to incorporate Amazon's patents without licensing all of its software patents too.

Note that in the license I've defined business method patents to be included within the definition of software patents.

I would think the advantages of Amazon leveraging its own software patents to gain the defensive value of a larger portfolio far outweigh the advantages Amazon currently has in using their patents defensively in non-patent-related lawsuits.

(BTW, the license covers not only patents, but some other IP that from a practical point of view creates restrictions that are similar to the restrictions of patents, such as copyrights on API's, reverse-engineering restrictions, user-interface copyrights, etc. That's why I said patent-ish earlier.)

At the expense of the ability to use patents defensively in non-patent-related lawsuits in which the other party is also a license, by agreeing to this license-all-software-patents option of the Open Patent License, Amazon can gain the use of any other patents compatibly licensed, can regain community goodwill, can end the patent-caused boycott, can protect themselves and the community from (some) software patent hindrances to innovation, and in so doing can even be said to be giving back to the community by taking a public stance that will help nurture the development of future software that would otherwise be stifled due to patent concerns.

I would ask that Amazon consider using the Open Patent License.

-Mark Shewmaker
mark@primefactor.com
www.openpatents.org

(Note, the license is still in development. I would obviously not want them to agree to a beta version of a patent license.)

It's almost as bad as the idea of building an 'open source patent portfolio' and then acting just like the corporations, to teach them a lesson! no no no ;P

I admit I was already writing a response with a pointer to www.openpatents.org, but you sort of beat me to that topic.

I don't understand. Why do you think putting together such a patent portfolio is a bad idea?

Of course, I don't have any "teach them a lesson" thoughts here. It's just that since corporations get around the problem with cross-licensing, I don't see why we can't or shouldn't do the same. Not doing so leaves us defenseless in that realm--we still can use patent--busting prior art, etc, and perhaps lobby for reform, but I don't think that's as effective, as cheap, or as quick to an individual solution. I consider worldwide patent law reform a more longer-term solution.

So instead of worrying that Open Source code writers are continually at risk of >$40k lawsuits even given patent-busting prior art, I'd personally rather try to convince corporations to cross-license their patents under the Open Patent License, (still in development), to preserve the defensive value of their patents while giving the advantage of gaining rights to use more and more patents over time, which will also let the patents be used Open Source code.

I don't understand what would be so objectionable about such a license.

I guess it could be useful for a company to GPL-licence a Patent, and then sell exemptions to that licence (like the Reiser-FS).

Or perhaps the company could consider using the Open Patent license, (still in progress), at www.openpatents.org, in which patents can be licensed for Open Source use if all other patents are available under the same Open Source license.

It also has Options for patent-holders to license patents such that they can be used in products containing only similarly-licensed or more stringently-licensed patents and patent-like IPs.

5. There is no standard GPLish license for patents, organization for common licensing, or solution to the posed problems suggested in the first fifty posts. Given the reality as presented, some solution should be found. Unfortunately, only the first fifty posts are ever reviewed.

I'm trying to promote the notion of just such a GPLish patent license via the Open Patent License under development at www.openpatents.org.

AFAIK, there's no currently accepted open patent license.

Perhaps the Open Patent License I'm trying to promote at www.openpatents.org can eventually be accepted by the community.

AFAIK, there's no currently accepted open patent license.

Perhaps the Open Patent License I'm trying to promote at www.openpatents.org can eventually be accepted by the community.

I guess that's always my underlying worry about the idea of defensive patents taken out by any well-meaning individual or organization. It might seem like a fine idea at first, but if of them starts racking up gambling debts in Vegas, how tempting is it going to be to start enforcing those patents and extorting huge fees?

What we need is some sort of legal process where you can apply for a patent, and then "I leave this to the public now and forever."

Under the Open Patent License under development at www.openpatents.org, patents are submitted irrevocably, (after some different timeouts). I've talked with a patent attorney and find out that the general things I want the license to do can be done, but I didn't ask about the irrevocable submittions--I *think*, but haven't verified with any lawyer that it can be done. It's something I really want the license to do, otherwise it's not really fair to the other participants. (BTW, I also haven't asked that lawyer to debug the license in detail yet--a waste of time IMHO for a license that's still in flux. Once it settles down a bit, I'll pay for some legal debugging.)

On one hand, if a sufficiently large block of "Free Patents" were available then perhaps we could make the same kind of patent trades that the big companies do and get access to, say Unisys' patent on GIF, for example.

That's the sort of thing I want the Open Patent License at www.openpatents.org/ to help do.

BSD can be repackaged as close source. Linux cannot. If the patent usage licence resembles GPL there is no such problem. The question is that... Yes... Yet Another License...

Under the Open Patent License I'm trying to promote at www.openpatents.org, if you submit a patent via the Option currently named Option F, (the license is still under development), then the patent can be used in any software where the work as a whole is distributable under an Open Source License, (and where all other patents are at least available for use under the same Open Source License.)

The ramifications for BSD licensed code, (what's intended anyway), is that a patent in Pool F could be incorporated into that code and (usually) used freely, up until the code was made into a proprietary product. At that point someone would have to negotiate a separate patent license, as the OPL would no longer apply.

I've talked with a Patent attorney about the license in general, and found to my relief that the things I want it to do are in fact doable. I haven't asked him to go over the license in detail yet, as I don't see much point in spending money on the legal debugging when the license itself hasn't fully settled down. Once it seems that the license probably does what most parties would want it to do, or at least their goals are incorporated into it in such a way that a lawyer rewrite the wording properly, I'll take it to the lawyers again and go through a few rounds of legal debugging/general debugging.

If anyone is interested in discussing the topic in depth, there's a mailing list on the site.

BSD can be repackaged as close source. Linux cannot. If the patent usage licence resembles GPL there is no such problem. The question is that... Yes... Yet Another License...

Under the Open Patent License I'm trying to promote at www.openpatents.org, if you submit a patent via the Option currently named Option F, (the license is still under development), then the patent can be used in any software where the work as a whole is distributable under an Open Source License, (and where all other patents are at least available for use under the same Open Source License.)

The ramifications for BSD licensed code, (what's intended anyway), is that a patent in Pool F could be incorporated into that code and (usually) used freely, up until the code was made into a proprietary product. At that point someone would have to negotiate a separate patent license, as the OPL would no longer apply.

I've talked with a Patent attorney about the license in general, and found to my relief that the things I want it to do are in fact doable. I haven't asked him to go over the license in detail yet, as I don't see much point in spending money on the legal debugging when the license itself hasn't fully settled down. Once it seems that the license probably does what most parties would want it to do, or at least their goals are incorporated into it in such a way that a lawyer rewrite the wording properly, I'll take it to the lawyers again and go through a few rounds of legal debugging/general debugging.

If anyone is interested in discussing the topic in depth, there's a mailing list on the site.

Why not allow them to be licensed for whatever purpose you want so long as they aren't contaminated by proprietary extensions?

That's pretty much what I'm trying to promote with the Open Patent License under development at www.openpatents.org.

The OPL also allows you to submit patents with more restrictive conditions closer to the sort cameldrv suggests. You can submit patents under the OPL such that they can be used only in works works entirely distributable under an Open Source license and for which other incorporated patents are at least available under the terms of the same Open Source license.

However, I think most submitters would find the other Options of the license more useful to them--the other Options let the patents additionally be used in various types of "uncontaminated" proprietary products, given different sets of conditions. Those other Options are closer to what browser_war_pow suggested, in that proprietary products aren't immediately ruled out.

(Both Open Source and non Open Source development is harmed by software patents, so I think any solution like this should be inclusive of both groups.)

If anyone's interested, there's a mailing list for discussion of the Open Patent License.

Why not allow them to be licensed for whatever purpose you want so long as they aren't contaminated by proprietary extensions?

That's pretty much what I'm trying to promote with the Open Patent License under development at www.openpatents.org.

The OPL also allows you to submit patents with more restrictive conditions closer to the sort cameldrv suggests. You can submit patents under the OPL such that they can be used only in works works entirely distributable under an Open Source license and for which other incorporated patents are at least available under the terms of the same Open Source license.

However, I think most submitters would find the other Options of the license more useful to them--the other Options let the patents additionally be used in various types of "uncontaminated" proprietary products, given different sets of conditions. Those other Options are closer to what browser_war_pow suggested, in that proprietary products aren't immediately ruled out.

(Both Open Source and non Open Source development is harmed by software patents, so I think any solution like this should be inclusive of both groups.)

If anyone's interested, there's a mailing list for discussion of the Open Patent License.

The Open Patent License under development at www.openpatents.org includes the concept of patent-like intellectual properties. I want the license to adress restrictions that have real-world effects similar to the restrictive effects of patents, as opposed to only addressing the patents themselves. Copyrighting facts is a sort of restriction that seems to me to be closer to the type of restrictions patents create, because both patents and copyrights on facts restrict use of publicly accessable information.

That and some other concepts are merged into something I've abbreviated as "PLIPs", (someone please come up with a better acronym!) People who agree to the OPL's submit-all-your-software-patents Option, granting them the use of other similar patents in products containing no other IP, have to submit all their PLIPs as well.

This might be a useful stopgap measure until we get some sanity in IP legislation worldwide.

The idea of a GPL or copyleft for software patents is challenging. But to accomplish anything, the project must be on a technically sound basis. That means technically adept from a software technology standpoint and also technically correct from a patent law standpoint.

This may be an idea whose time has come. Are any of you willing to join in forming a SIGSWPAT or other forum to discuss this further with a view toward establishing an organization to implement these ideas? Is there an existing organization into which this could properly be incorporated? Would anybody want to start a Web site or include a site for this as part of an existing, related one?

Sure, take a look at www.openpatents.org. I've got a license in progress there, a mailing list to discuss the license and the project as a whole, and I've gone through the initial steps to form a nonprofit organization to implement it all.

I'm trying to put together just such a system with the Open Patent License as described at www.openpatents.org.

(I've talked with a patent attorney to make sure the general idea of the license can be made workable, but I'm holding off on paying for the line-by-line legal debugging of the license until it stabilizes a bit more. If you're interested in discussing and improving the license, there's info on the site about an opl-discuss mailing list you can subscribe to. )

At the Public Patent Portfoloio Consortium (P3C) there are links to a Technocrat article about this, and to OpenPatents.org.

Disclaimer: I'm not impartial. I created P3C and wrote the Technocrat article. OpenPatents.org belongs to someone else.

We should create an open patent license; something similar to the GPL, but for patents instead of copyrights.

Such as the Open Patent License described at www.openpatents.org perhaps?

We should create an open patent license; something similar to the GPL, but for patents instead of copyrights.

Such as the Open Patent License described at www.openpatents.org perhaps?

However, no matter how much I dislike them and dislike spending time on creating them, you need those kinds of patents for trading or your company goes under.

Instead of merely trading patents with a few other parties, which doesn't do anything to help solve the larger problem, I would suggest a method of cross-licensing them with everyone who uses them defensively and gaining the advantages that would imply.

At www.openpatents.org, I'm trying to promote the notion of an Open Patent cross-licensing agreement. Companies who agree to its various Options have access to different sets of its Open Patent Pools. One consequence of this is that if you agree to the terms and conditions of certain Options of the license, in addition to being able to negotiate licensing agreements based on your own patent portfolio, you would also effectively be able to negotiate based on the much larger portfolios of one or more of the Open Patent Pools.

Since you have written software patents, (presumably for the company you're currently working for, and presumably for reasons that both you and the company consider defensive), would you be interested in submitting patents under such a license?

I can, however, imagine closed source vendors guaranteeing never to use the UCITA remedies available to them, as a part of their contract with customers. It may be the only way to keep customers if these laws take effect.

The (unfinished) Open Patent License has options to do this.

For instance, if you agree to Option 4 of the Open Patent License, that means that:

1. You have submitted all your software patents under the rules of Option 4.
2. You also agree not to enforce UCITA-type restrictions in certain circumstances.

Other companies can create products incorporating these submitted patents if 2 conditions are met. (There are more really, this is a simplification):

1. If the product contains only patents licensed at that level and lower. (There are other rules for Open Source products--I won't get into that here.)
2. If the other company has also agreed to Option 4, thus licensing the use of its software patents and agreeing not to enforce UCITA-type restrictions under certain conditions.

The general idea of the Open Patent License is that you agree to abandon your (patent and patent-like) IP monopoly powers over all those who abandon theirs to an equal or greater extent. I consider restrictions on reading, (that is, restrictions on reverse-engineering), to be very close to the type of restrictions patents create, and so I think anything that addresses the problems patents cause should address these UCITA-supported monstrosities as well.

1) Use an extreamly viral license the prohibits mixed use of the patent with any patents not distributed under the same license, i.e. no company can use our patents unless the cross licence with the rest of the world via our license.

I'm trying to promote something fairly close to that with the Open Patent License.

2) Allow companies to get arround 1 by paying thorugh the nose and use the money to reward the researchers and pay for lawyers, i.e. compramize our principals occasionally.

I would rather the researchers own the patents themselves, and merely license them under the OPL. If someone wants to use the patent other than as the Open Patent License allows, they can go to the patent holder, in this case the researcher or perhaps the university, to negotiate terms.

Unfortunatly, the above dose require a lot of orginisation, a lot of conenctions, and a lot of work.

I don't think these problems are insurmountable. Most companies who acquire software patents do so primarily for defensive reasons. I expect that after we get to a well-debugged version 1.0 of the license, and a few companies start agreeing to it, that more will quickly agree. I would expect most of the people for whom software patents are a net loss overall would eventually agree to the license.

I could envision some kind of voluntary patent system, where individuals or corporations could opt in or out of in its entirety (opting in or out of individual patents is obviously ludicrous). So those of us who are opposed to patents could opt out of the patent system entirely -- we would not be bound by any patents, but we could not file for, contribute any work to, or hold any either.

I aim to have the Open Patent License do something vaguely like that. Under the license, (still in alpha), you can agree to give up your patent and patent-like monopoly powers over anyone who similarly agrees, in Open Source products and products for which all covered IP is similarly licensed. But if a (non Open Source) product incorporates patents not licensed under the OPL, then we're back to having to worry about individual patent licenses for everything, so it's only opt-out for sets of IP in which all the owners have similarly opted-out.

That's probably as close as you can get to a complete opt-out without legislative changes, but it should allow those who hold patents but for whom the patent system is a hinderence a partial escape from the stranglehold patents can have on progress and invention.

Software patents are a Bad Thing. It's good to fight to change them. But until they actually are changed, we do have to respect the system.

However, until the patent system is changed, it can yet prove useful. Consider: The GPL uses copyright, which is supposed to prevent people from copying works, to instead allow such copying. Something similar could (albeit more expensively) be done with patents relatively easily.

This is exactly what I'm trying to do at www.openpatents.org.

Those who submit their patents under this license (the "Open Patent License") would gain the use of other patents similarly licensed and would also gain the defensive benefits of the larger patent portfolio this license would create.

Those who are obtaining patents for defensive reasons can pretty much only benefit from such an agreement.

Maybe some organization to keep track of "prior art" would be helpful.

The Software Patent Institute keeps up a searchable prior art database, and they accept submissions.

Or there could simply be a non-profit organization that accumulates patents (as silly as possible) and then force companies to cross-license for all open source software.

I'm not out to force companies to do anything they don't want to do, but as far as the cross-licensing part goes, and all silliness aside, (parden the pun), I'm trying to promote the notion of a cross-license agreement at www.openpatents.org as a method of solving (some of) the problem of software patents.

If people who use their patents defensively could cross-license their patents with each other, that larger total portfolio could help protect them against patent lawsuits. (And of course they wouldn't have to worry about lawsuits among themselves. Well, at least patent infringement lawsuits about covered uses.)

...or sue Micro$oft for a couple billions...

Microsoft is one of the good guys on this issue. They have never used their software patents offensively. You can perhaps complain about them for other reasons and in other contexts, but IMHO it's not appropriate to complain about them as far as software patents are concerned.

Didn't I hear about an Open Source Patent Project? Does anyone know how it's going?

If you are referring to my Open Patent License project atwww.openpatents.org, then it's still going. I'm getting comments and help from a few folks on the license, but I've slacked off on my contacts. (Been sick.) During the Holidays and especially right before Y2K is probably not the best time to be talking with legal folks at technology companies, so I'll probably hold off until after the new years to resume that. (Unless the world comes to an end *and* everyone starts suing one another. Then I'll hold off a couple more weeks. :-) ) Of course, if anyone has any patents or suggestions to contribute, there's no need to wait until after the new year to let me know, or to join the mailing list.

Have an Open Ideas Database where potentially patentable idea (however "obvious") can be made public and thus no longer patentable.

That's being done at the Software Patent Institute.

(As a side note, neither a cross-licensing proposal nor a prior art database needs limit itself to OSS-type ideas. The OSS/Free Software and proprietary worlds are both at risk by software patents, and IMHO any solutions to these types of problems should be inclusive of both groups.)

I'm glad that my company at least uses its patents for defensive reasons only.

Then would they be willing to help solve the problem for both themselves and others by actually coming out and agreeing to one of the Options (say number 4) of the Open Patent License?

The idea of the license is that if those who say "we only use our patents defensively", explicitely give each other permission to use those "defensive" patents uhm, err, defensively, then they'll all have the effective benefit of a much larger portfolio.

(Actually, it's a little more complicated than the description above--there are 7 Options to cover different sorts of cases, but that's pretty much the basic idea.)

If you have any comments or suggestions about the www.openpatents.org site, please let me know, or subscribe to the mailing list.

I'm glad that my company at least uses its patents for defensive reasons only.

Then would they be willing to help solve the problem for both themselves and others by actually coming out and agreeing to one of the Options (say number 4) of the Open Patent License?

The idea of the license is that if those who say "we only use our patents defensively", explicitely give each other permission to use those "defensive" patents uhm, err, defensively, then they'll all have the effective benefit of a much larger portfolio.

(Actually, it's a little more complicated than the description above--there are 7 Options to cover different sorts of cases, but that's pretty much the basic idea.)

If you have any comments or suggestions about the www.openpatents.org site, please let me know, or subscribe to the mailing list.

Exactly. Prior art can only help defend against patents the prior art happens to cover, whereas a patent portfolio can potentially defend against a much larger set of patents.

I would ask that anyone who actually does own any software patents and who wants to help form such a portfolio, (as well as wanting to benefit from the existence of such a patent portfolio), to consider licensing their patents under some option of the Open Patent License.

If you know someone who owns patents and would be interested in using them to help solve the problems (software) patents cause, please bring the subject up with them.

And if you have any suggestions on the Open Patent License itself, there's a mailing list for discussing the license. I'd be happy to incorporate any improvements.

Exactly. Prior art can only help defend against patents the prior art happens to cover, whereas a patent portfolio can potentially defend against a much larger set of patents.

I would ask that anyone who actually does own any software patents and who wants to help form such a portfolio, (as well as wanting to benefit from the existence of such a patent portfolio), to consider licensing their patents under some option of the Open Patent License.

If you know someone who owns patents and would be interested in using them to help solve the problems (software) patents cause, please bring the subject up with them.

And if you have any suggestions on the Open Patent License itself, there's a mailing list for discussing the license. I'd be happy to incorporate any improvements.

We don't need to defeat anyone. All we need to do is provide a way to help individuals and corporations escape the trap that (software) patents create.

I've been trying to put together something similar to the license you propose. See www.openpatents.org for more information.