Twitter: 'We Promise To Not Be a Patent Troll'

Fluffeh writes "Twitter today unveiled a bold new commitment that will be made in writing to its employees — the company will not use any patents derived from employee inventions in offensive lawsuits without the inventor's permission. Twitter has written up a draft of what it calls the 'Innovator's Patent Agreement,' or IPA, which encourages its developers to invent without the fear that their inventions will be used for nefarious purposes. 'The IPA is a new way to do patent assignment that keeps control in the hands of engineers and designers. It is a commitment from Twitter to our employees that patents can only be used for defensive purposes,' Messinger wrote. 'We will not use the patents from employees' inventions in offensive litigation without their permission. What's more, this control flows with the patents, so if we sold them to others, they could only use them as the inventor intended.'"

Comments

We promise

[stanlyb]

We, the poor users, promise to believe you.......

permission discussion

[bloodhawk]

Manager : We would like to use one of your patents to sue our competitors for X amount
Engineer : I am sorry my ethics don't allow me to do that
Manager : We will cut you in for X million of the proceeds
Engineer : Where do I sign.

Re:permission discussion

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe. Have you read some of their corporate writing? I haven't looked at it in the two years since I was thinking about applying there -- I was working on software with an engineer from there in a non-Twitter capacity -- and it is by far the most hippie-dippy company speak you could hope to find outside of a vegan dessert shop. The employee himself didn't strike me outwardly as a hippie, though he talk about how he loved being near the parks and bicycling around. So perhaps a clean-cut hippie. At the time I found their wording a little off-putting, but thinking about it now it's a hell of a lot better than the standard "you pledge your undying loyalty to us and applaud for all of our decisions, no matter how stupid, and we'll in turn feel free to cut you loose any time we feel like it" of most corporations.

Worthless

[gweihir]

They can just coerce or bribe the employee in question. "Don't want to sue? Well, I guess that promotion will not be coming down after all."

This is an act of manipulation and misdirection and just as amoral as that sounds.

Re:Worthless

[RazorSharp]

Why does something nefarious have to be going on? Because it's a corporation? I don't see what they have to gain from dishonesty. It's not like the average Twitter user could even define intellectual property, let alone care about it. It may seem strange, but sometimes people do things because they think it's right.

Also, 'amoral' means ethically neutral or ignorant. An act of manipulation is generally considered immoral, which means not moral.

Re:Worthless

[wisnoskij]

It sounds like this contract is not to make the company look good publicly so much as it is to provide a more reasonable and innovative environment for its workers.
And while the possibly of bribery might make you not think that the contract will stop trolling it is still very good for the inventor (who gets the bribe).

Re:Worthless

[gweihir]

Oh, even if they are honest now, there will come a point in the future where they will rethink this. And then they will discover they have plenty of loopholes. That they do not take this future into account makes them dishonest and evil now, because they promise something worthwhile but must know they cannot deliver.

Re:Worthless

[Anonymous Coward]

You live in a sad world. It's no wonder people give up trying to good things when there are people like you to tell them how they are evil for even trying. I'd rather a company try to do something good and fail than be such a cynic as to see the world through your eyes.

Re:"Don't be evil"

[readandburn]

More like Twitter is the *old* Google.

Re:"Don't be evil"

[Nerdfest]

I searched (admittedly briefly) for a case of Google suing for patents the other day and couldn't find one. There was one older case of Motorola suing Apple for a hardware patent. They're still pretty damn well behaved as corporations go in my books.

Cross-licensing

[Anonymous Coward]

Many corporations already cross-license their software patents. I think it would be better if Twitter promised to cross-license their software patents at zero cost to anybody who agreed to cross license theirs, and to maintain the registry AT COST. The cost should be virtually nothing, since it would just be a small database running in a cloud somewhere.

Then a few biggies like IBM might join this. As the fortune 500 dominoes tumbled, smaller guys would get in on the act. Anybody, even individuals should be allowed to join.

Eventually, only trolls would not be in the pact. The ultimate finally might involve an anti-trust suit, the SCOTUS, a suitcase full of cocaine and some balloon animals. Everybody wakes up next to a dead hooker and then the blackmailing begins. Next day, software patents are still on the books but for all intents and purposes no longer exist.

Re:contrary to articles of incorporation

[Anonymous Coward]

twitter is not a publicly traded company.

The HP Way

[MrEricSir]

Ever heard of "The HP Way"?

Yeah. There's plenty of reasons to be cynical about corporations making long-term commitments to employees. Once the people who made the promises are gone, so are their promises.

Re:The HP Way

[gweihir]

Ever heard of "The HP Way"?

Yeah. There's plenty of reasons to be cynical about corporations making long-term commitments to employees. Once the people who made the promises are gone, so are their promises.

Indeed. It is not cynical to recognize facts. And it is a fact that corporations cannot make and keep promises. It is just not in their nature. There are other options that do allow them to make commitments, but any corporation making "promises" can always break them easily.

Re:+1 Twitter

[Shifty0x88]

Until Twitter proves me wrong: +1 Twitter for not being a douche...

+1 for Slashdot if I can get an "edit comment" button

Re:contrary to articles of incorporation

[Rennt]

Hold on there. You state that the patent promise is contrary to financial responsibility, but that is not apparent at all. Yes, they are closing the door on one potential revenue source (raising money by rent-seeking) but that is only an opportunity cost of opening other doors.

The directors will argue that it would be fiscally irresponsible to persue rent-seeking over real innovation, and they would be right. Honestly, directors do have a lot of leeway to peruse whatever path they want pursuant to financial responsibility, and as long as they can justify it to their shareholders (or a court, should it come to that) they are golden.