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

Posted by Soulskill on from the gesture-of-goodwill dept.

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.'"

7 of 103 comments (clear)

  1. We promise by stanlyb · · Score: 4, Funny

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

  2. permission discussion by bloodhawk · · Score: 4, Funny

    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.

    1. Re:permission discussion by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

  3. Re:Worthless by RazorSharp · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    --
    "From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
  4. Re:"Don't be evil" by Nerdfest · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  5. Cross-licensing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  6. Re:Worthless by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.