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An important caveat I forgot: If you do plan to use patents on open-source software defensively, it's fairly tricky to figure out the right way to do it. You cannot just give a blanket grant to anyone to use the patent for any purpose, since then it loses its defensive value: you have to be able to retain the right to threaten the extension-patenter with a patent-infringement suit. But at the same time you clearly don't want normal users to feel thus threatened.

You instead need to take an approach that grants a royalty-free patent license, but conditional on a reciprocal grant of any relevant patents the other party holds (for some definition of "relevant"). The in-development Open Patent License was an attempt to codify this in an off-the-shelf license, but seems to have died about 1 1/2 years ago. I'm not sure if there are any current such licenses.

John Walker of AutoDesk fame and victim of the infamous XOR patent has had thoughts along those lines (PATO). See also these pages.

Someone has already been working on this idea. See the Open Patents web site.

I propose a parallel license for patents

For me, what it is trying to do is to avoid someone else filling it and sue them or put them out of business.

The next thing they should do is open this patent, i.e. in the way described in OpenPatents.

This already exists: http://www.openpatents.org/

I think that it is almost exactly what I was trying to describe. (See -- I'm not the first inventor). And I also think this is where I acknowledge I was not even the first to coin the phrase "Open Patent License" the way I thought in my initial post. Someone else steered me here.

(And do email me, if you would--I admit that I've not put as much work into the project recently as I've meant, but it would be great to be able to talk with a patent attorney about a number of issues involved.)

"If I understand how patents work, there is no reason to take out a patent on principle--the only thing a patent is good for is to stop people from using an invention"

OR , by patenting, be able to enforce a GPL-like license which gives everyone free royalty to use a certain patent (e.g. there is a "patentleft": OpenPatents). If you DON'T claim the patent because you want it to be usable by everyone, that still doesn't stop somebody in the future from patenting it, and restricting usage.

As I understand it, IP is protected by patent from the submission date, not the grant date, so noone risks losing IP because of public disclosure.

I'm sure the folks over at OpenIP.org or OpenPatents.org would be willing to discuss this...

That idea is more or less the sort of thing I want the Open Patent License in progress at openpatents.org to do.

That idea is more or less the sort of thing I want the Open Patent License in progress at openpatents.org to do.

How about an agreement like this:

Company X states that patents A, B, ... will be licensed at no-cost to anyone whose code using those patents is covered by any of the free/open-source licenses FooL, BarL, ...

Check out openpatents.org. You get actual real patents on ideas, and then give openpatents.org a grant, saying that anyone can use your patent, provided that any other patents that he owns are also contributed to openpatents.org.

Regards,

Zooko

Chief Hunchback

Evil Geniuses For A Better Tomorrow

There is also Open Patents where some guy is creating a GPL-like patent-pool structure for patents.

I've developed a piece of software that implements a patented protocol, and am in discussion currently with the patent holder on a patent license for open software (i.e., they can extort all the money they want from companies that want to embed the technology, but not from anyone delivering source with their products).

I'm not a lawyer or anything, but I'm trying to push for something similar with what's currently labelled "Option F" of the Open Patent License at www.openpatents.org, and in order to help the license become more useful when it is debugged in detail by lawyers, I would like to:

1. Understand the concerns of possible participants.
2. Encourage open discussion of the topic on the mailing list, so the license can better include needed features and better address possible concerns, assuming the participants would consider public discussion at this point.
3. List the company as being interested in licensing their patents that way, once the license is in a workable state, again assuming they don't mind such publicity, as a way of helping to persuade other possible future licensors to either do the same, or to at least offer other suggestions to improve the license.

I've developed a piece of software that implements a patented protocol, and am in discussion currently with the patent holder on a patent license for open software (i.e., they can extort all the money they want from companies that want to embed the technology, but not from anyone delivering source with their products).

I'm not a lawyer or anything, but I'm trying to push for something similar with what's currently labelled "Option F" of the Open Patent License at www.openpatents.org, and in order to help the license become more useful when it is debugged in detail by lawyers, I would like to:

1. Understand the concerns of possible participants.
2. Encourage open discussion of the topic on the mailing list, so the license can better include needed features and better address possible concerns, assuming the participants would consider public discussion at this point.
3. List the company as being interested in licensing their patents that way, once the license is in a workable state, again assuming they don't mind such publicity, as a way of helping to persuade other possible future licensors to either do the same, or to at least offer other suggestions to improve the license.

I've developed a piece of software that implements a patented protocol, and am in discussion currently with the patent holder on a patent license for open software (i.e., they can extort all the money they want from companies that want to embed the technology, but not from anyone delivering source with their products).

I'm not a lawyer or anything, but I'm trying to push for something similar with what's currently labelled "Option F" of the Open Patent License at www.openpatents.org, and in order to help the license become more useful when it is debugged in detail by lawyers, I would like to:

1. Understand the concerns of possible participants.
2. Encourage open discussion of the topic on the mailing list, so the license can better include needed features and better address possible concerns, assuming the participants would consider public discussion at this point.
3. List the company as being interested in licensing their patents that way, once the license is in a workable state, again assuming they don't mind such publicity, as a way of helping to persuade other possible future licensors to either do the same, or to at least offer other suggestions to improve the license.

Consider, if he additionally licensed the BSD people (but only them) to use the algorithms freely, could they still use them, knowing that the software would not be modifiable by others?

(And as you can see at the www.openpatents.org site, Raph does seem to be open to considering something like the OPL once it's stable.)

Consider, if he additionally licensed the BSD people (but only them) to use the algorithms freely, could they still use them, knowing that the software would not be modifiable by others?

(And as you can see at the www.openpatents.org site, Raph does seem to be open to considering something like the OPL once it's stable.)

However, I wouldn't mind seeing a coherent implementation of Mutual Defense Against Software Patents. Fight copyright with copyleft. Fight patents with mutual defense.

However, I wouldn't mind seeing a coherent implementation of Mutual Defense Against Software Patents. Fight copyright with copyleft. Fight patents with mutual defense.

A lot has been talked about the Free Software patent pool. Software algorithms/methods will be patented and will be allowed to use only in free software. The idea is to give free software a competitive advantage over propietery software.

What do you think?

A lot has been talked about the Free Software patent pool. Software algorithms/methods will be patented and will be allowed to use only in free software. The idea is to give free software a competitive advantage over propietery software.

What do you think?

What if I have an Open Patent? Can I sell that too?

(I have thought about at some point letting patent-holders who've submitted their patents under one of the Options of the Open Patent License to sell non-Open Patent licenses through the site as well, where those sales would incur a small commision, all as a way of making the site self-funding in the long term. But all that's a ways off still--the first priority is to do the main Open Patents work first. However, I wasn't planning on listing non-Open Patents with that service, since I think that would be counter to the main goals of the site and organization.)

Could I now turn around and sue Amazon? Since I am now the owner of 1-click, can I go to all licensees of Amazon and demand more money? Is Amazon obliged to tell me all the companies they have license 1-click to? What if I have an Open Patent? Can I sell that too? And what of trademarks? Linus Torvalds hold the Linux trademark. Can he sell that and what would happen to Redhat if MS buys it?

The way I see it, it just opens a whole can of worms. The field is ripe for lawyers to get rich!

I guess the only way to prevent that kind of thing in the near future is for small companies (even larger) to join their patents so they can have a big enough patent pool to be protected against those attacks.

I guess the only way to prevent that kind of thing in the near future is for small companies (even larger) to join their patents so they can have a big enough patent pool to be protected against those attacks.

If the entire industry agrees to a reduced duration for sotfware patents, then shouldn't the patent office allow this? It would certainly seem that the patent office and the lawyers have allowed this to take a life of its own, forgetting the original purpose.

This arrogrance is very disheartening.

Even if we can't (yet) convince the patent office and legislatures about the harm of (software) patents, businesses who would rather bypass the whole mess but need to have their own patents for defensive reasons can still cross-license their patents among themselves.

It's not as effective a solution as international patent law reform, but at least it can be a partial solution for Open Source writers as well as give those who have defensive patents an even greater defense against any who use patents offensively, and it doesn't require an act of congress to implement.

That's the sort of solution I'm wanting to promote with the Open Patent License in development at www.openpatents.org.

If you have any suggestions as to how to better go about this, or suggestions on improvements to the license, please let me know, or join the mailing list.

If the entire industry agrees to a reduced duration for sotfware patents, then shouldn't the patent office allow this? It would certainly seem that the patent office and the lawyers have allowed this to take a life of its own, forgetting the original purpose.

This arrogrance is very disheartening.

Even if we can't (yet) convince the patent office and legislatures about the harm of (software) patents, businesses who would rather bypass the whole mess but need to have their own patents for defensive reasons can still cross-license their patents among themselves.

It's not as effective a solution as international patent law reform, but at least it can be a partial solution for Open Source writers as well as give those who have defensive patents an even greater defense against any who use patents offensively, and it doesn't require an act of congress to implement.

That's the sort of solution I'm wanting to promote with the Open Patent License in development at www.openpatents.org.

If you have any suggestions as to how to better go about this, or suggestions on improvements to the license, please let me know, or join the mailing list.

If the entire industry agrees to a reduced duration for sotfware patents, then shouldn't the patent office allow this? It would certainly seem that the patent office and the lawyers have allowed this to take a life of its own, forgetting the original purpose.

This arrogrance is very disheartening.

Even if we can't (yet) convince the patent office and legislatures about the harm of (software) patents, businesses who would rather bypass the whole mess but need to have their own patents for defensive reasons can still cross-license their patents among themselves.

It's not as effective a solution as international patent law reform, but at least it can be a partial solution for Open Source writers as well as give those who have defensive patents an even greater defense against any who use patents offensively, and it doesn't require an act of congress to implement.

That's the sort of solution I'm wanting to promote with the Open Patent License in development at www.openpatents.org.

If you have any suggestions as to how to better go about this, or suggestions on improvements to the license, please let me know, or join the mailing list.

So, basically, an SIR is an OpenPatent?

It is a patent which servers /only/ to relinquish all rights to the public domain, and to prevent others from claiming a similar patent.

That's good news. I suggest all programmers and companies (in the software industry) start using these "ethical" patents.

So, basically, an SIR is an OpenPatent?

It is a patent which servers /only/ to relinquish all rights to the public domain, and to prevent others from claiming a similar patent.

That's good news. I suggest all programmers and companies (in the software industry) start using these "ethical" patents.

Potential flamers: My patent is for defensive purposes only (Although, AFAIK, not many people are using it).

(That is, once the license reaches version 1.0.0, and is fully reviewed and finalized and legally debugged, not at the work-in-progress state it's in now obviously.)

Potential flamers: My patent is for defensive purposes only (Although, AFAIK, not many people are using it).

(That is, once the license reaches version 1.0.0, and is fully reviewed and finalized and legally debugged, not at the work-in-progress state it's in now obviously.)

This is where Amazon can show weather it's a jungle or just a big river. Put the ridicules patents it owns into a pool managed by the FSF and LI. Ask every member of LI to contribute some patents to the pool.

This is where Amazon can show weather it's a jungle or just a big river. Put the ridicules patents it owns into a pool managed by the FSF and LI. Ask every member of LI to contribute some patents to the pool.

The right way to deal with this would seem to be to establish (as has been discussed elsewhere) a non-profit "patent custodian" that people can donate their patents to. Then have that organization use licenses for its patents as a lever to extract open source licensing for other key patents.

For example, if the GNOME folks had a few good patents, they might be able to get Adobe to release their color model handling for use in GNOME programs (and their derivatives). This really should not be an issue, since any GNOME derived program is subject to the GPL, and that means that most of Adobe's rivals won't touch it.

Also, to be fair, I would like to point out that I haven't seen anything that would paint Adobe as a villian in this area. They weren't too enthused about software patents six years ago, according to Douglas Brotz's statements at the Public Hearing on Use of the Patent System to Protect Software Related Inventions; the fact that they personally have patents that they seem not to have used offensively against Open Source efforts means I can't really ascribe any malice to them. In fact, even Microsoft hasn't used any of its software patents offensively.

I know you simply used Adobe as an example of a company that has happened to effectively be holding up progress, but I just wanted to point out that their interests probably mostly align with ours on the let's-not-get-sued-over-software-patents issues. I can't see that Adobe for instance has specifically worked to stop Free Software development, but I can see that their defensive patenting has had that as a side effect. I want the Open Patent license to be able to provide a way for them to safetly stop slowing progress without harming the defensive advantages their patents give them, as well as benefiting them by allowing them access to a larger Open Patent Pool of patents--I want the Open Patent License to be a win-win game for all players.

The right way to deal with this would seem to be to establish (as has been discussed elsewhere) a non-profit "patent custodian" that people can donate their patents to. Then have that organization use licenses for its patents as a lever to extract open source licensing for other key patents.

For example, if the GNOME folks had a few good patents, they might be able to get Adobe to release their color model handling for use in GNOME programs (and their derivatives). This really should not be an issue, since any GNOME derived program is subject to the GPL, and that means that most of Adobe's rivals won't touch it.

Also, to be fair, I would like to point out that I haven't seen anything that would paint Adobe as a villian in this area. They weren't too enthused about software patents six years ago, according to Douglas Brotz's statements at the Public Hearing on Use of the Patent System to Protect Software Related Inventions; the fact that they personally have patents that they seem not to have used offensively against Open Source efforts means I can't really ascribe any malice to them. In fact, even Microsoft hasn't used any of its software patents offensively.

I know you simply used Adobe as an example of a company that has happened to effectively be holding up progress, but I just wanted to point out that their interests probably mostly align with ours on the let's-not-get-sued-over-software-patents issues. I can't see that Adobe for instance has specifically worked to stop Free Software development, but I can see that their defensive patenting has had that as a side effect. I want the Open Patent license to be able to provide a way for them to safetly stop slowing progress without harming the defensive advantages their patents give them, as well as benefiting them by allowing them access to a larger Open Patent Pool of patents--I want the Open Patent License to be a win-win game for all players.

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

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

It is high time for the free software community to try an experiment with a Free Patent. It will be licensed for free to all end-users. For free software projects the only requirement to license it is to file a notice that you are using it with the patent holder and include some boilerplate text acknowledging the patent in your license. Commercial use requires the same notices and a small fee on a per program rather than per unit basis, plus some additional terms concerning licensing of that company's patent portfolio for use in free software. This could create a system in which defensive patents are used only defensively, to prevent anyone else from patenting an idea and using the patent against you.

(There are some differences, of course. Under the OPL, companies and programmers never have to pay a per-program or per-unit royalty, although they may be required to submit some of their own patents, as well as IP that acts similarly to patents--User-interface copyrights, some trade dress protections, not restrict reverse engineering, etc.--I'd like the license to help solve some potential UCITA and DMCA problems too. Also, I've separated out the requirements on submitting IP via Options of the license from using IP from the Pools of the license, which makes things easier to understand even with 7 Options and 7 Pools. For instance, there's the for-free-software-use "Pool F", and the for-proprietary-use you-can-use-these-patents-if-you-license-all-your software-patents-too "Pool 3".)

It is high time for the free software community to try an experiment with a Free Patent. It will be licensed for free to all end-users. For free software projects the only requirement to license it is to file a notice that you are using it with the patent holder and include some boilerplate text acknowledging the patent in your license. Commercial use requires the same notices and a small fee on a per program rather than per unit basis, plus some additional terms concerning licensing of that company's patent portfolio for use in free software. This could create a system in which defensive patents are used only defensively, to prevent anyone else from patenting an idea and using the patent against you.

(There are some differences, of course. Under the OPL, companies and programmers never have to pay a per-program or per-unit royalty, although they may be required to submit some of their own patents, as well as IP that acts similarly to patents--User-interface copyrights, some trade dress protections, not restrict reverse engineering, etc.--I'd like the license to help solve some potential UCITA and DMCA problems too. Also, I've separated out the requirements on submitting IP via Options of the license from using IP from the Pools of the license, which makes things easier to understand even with 7 Options and 7 Pools. For instance, there's the for-free-software-use "Pool F", and the for-proprietary-use you-can-use-these-patents-if-you-license-all-your software-patents-too "Pool 3".)

Establish a pool of open software patents....What are we waiting for?

If you're interested in helping with the license, or would be interested in submitting patents under the license, please let me know, or consider joining the mailing list.

Establish a pool of open software patents....What are we waiting for?

If you're interested in helping with the license, or would be interested in submitting patents under the license, please let me know, or consider joining the mailing list.

Establish a pool of open software patents....What are we waiting for?

If you're interested in helping with the license, or would be interested in submitting patents under the license, please let me know, or consider joining the mailing list.

Companies wishing to use any OSPP patents in closed-source products could do so for a fee and a cross-licensing agreement which allows all their patents to be used in open-source software for free under the OSPP license.

Companies wishing to use any OSPP patents in closed-source products could do so for a fee and a cross-licensing agreement which allows all their patents to be used in open-source software for free under the OSPP license.

Anyone else have ideas as to how we can turn things around within the system? I'd prefer to start inside than try to break it from outside.

There are IP's that aren't patents, but restrict users in ways similar to patents. For instance, reverse-engineering restrictions (basically restrictions on reading and thinking), are from a practical point of view a restriction very similar to patents, since they attempt to prevent some reimplementations of ideas, as opposed to the copyright-like restrictions on distributing duplicates of a specific implementation of the same ideas. Because of that, there are some patent-like IP's that the Open Patent License covers--there's little use in a patent cross-license agreement that is intended to solve some of the problems of software patents if the intent can be thwarted by reverse-engineering restrictions.

Perhaps the Open Patent License should also address these sorts of restrictions on access to a copyrighted document/work.

(Just to be clear, I don't agree with these sorts of restrictions on reading and thinking, and I doubt they'll hold up in court. But even if the US laws are eventually overturned in court or they're legislatively changed to become more sane, that's no reason not to address the same issues in a related IP license that doesn't limit itself to the US, especially since the US unfortunately doesn't have a monopoly on senseless IP laws.)

Anyone else have ideas as to how we can turn things around within the system? I'd prefer to start inside than try to break it from outside.

There are IP's that aren't patents, but restrict users in ways similar to patents. For instance, reverse-engineering restrictions (basically restrictions on reading and thinking), are from a practical point of view a restriction very similar to patents, since they attempt to prevent some reimplementations of ideas, as opposed to the copyright-like restrictions on distributing duplicates of a specific implementation of the same ideas. Because of that, there are some patent-like IP's that the Open Patent License covers--there's little use in a patent cross-license agreement that is intended to solve some of the problems of software patents if the intent can be thwarted by reverse-engineering restrictions.

Perhaps the Open Patent License should also address these sorts of restrictions on access to a copyrighted document/work.

(Just to be clear, I don't agree with these sorts of restrictions on reading and thinking, and I doubt they'll hold up in court. But even if the US laws are eventually overturned in court or they're legislatively changed to become more sane, that's no reason not to address the same issues in a related IP license that doesn't limit itself to the US, especially since the US unfortunately doesn't have a monopoly on senseless IP laws.)