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A conference on software patents and free softwareA conference on software patents and free softwarePosted Apr 30, 2010 22:50 UTC (Fri) by Simetrical (guest, #53439)Parent article: A conference on software patents and free software
"Since patents in this scheme cannot be used to attack other participants, they will be limited to defensive uses only."
More precisely, if your description is correct, they can be used to attack -- just not other DPL participants. In fact, the best case here would be that the DPL pool gets large enough that its participants can continually harass bigger players with semi-frivolous patent suits. Ideally, you'd set it up so that any DPL member can sue any non-DPL member for infringement of *any* DPL member's patent. Invite the patent trolls on board, and give them boatloads of patents to attack companies with. The victims would be forced to either shell out lots of money -- or join the DPL themselves. Once you get enough patents, and enough lawsuits flying around, even the biggest players might have to concede and join.
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A conference on software patents and free software Posted May 1, 2010 1:42 UTC (Sat) by nybble41 (subscriber, #55106) [Link]
What about smaller players? Would you have to contribute a patent to join? Could individual developers join?
A conference on software patents and free software Posted May 2, 2010 1:36 UTC (Sun) by Simetrical (guest, #53439) [Link]
You'd want to set up some rule saying that you can't use the organization's patents to sue someone unless they held patents but refused to contribute them to the pool, or something like that. So if you didn't hold any patents, there'd be no reason to join, I guess. Obviously you don't want everyone in the world forced to fill out some forms and join the organization to be immune from patent lawsuits.
A conference on software patents and free software Posted May 1, 2010 8:19 UTC (Sat) by error27 (subscriber, #8346) [Link]
I don't have any patents but if a patent troll wanted to patent ideas in my software and sue non members that would be fine with me.
How do I sign up?
A conference on software patents and free software Posted May 1, 2010 15:38 UTC (Sat) by dmarti (subscriber, #11625) [Link] What we need is a company that would be GPL patent pool by day, patent troll by night. Projects could get a GPL-compatible patent license letter, modeled on the FSMLabs license for RTLinux. Anyone else would have to pay up, with the revenue going to buy out GPL-compatible licenses to other trolls companies' patent portfolios. The real risk of software patents isn't trolls, it's cartels.
A conference on software patents and free software Posted May 1, 2010 17:06 UTC (Sat) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]
Great comment.
It really seems like patents are a problem the free software community can not solve by ignoring them. That just gives the trolls and cartels the room to corner the market, and so become an even bigger threat.
Just as the GPL used copyright against the proprietary software vendors, it seems the free software community needs to consider using the patent system to carve out breathing room for free software. As you say, it could eventually fund itself...
A conference on software patents and free software Posted May 2, 2010 0:10 UTC (Sun) by jmspeex (subscriber, #51639) [Link]
While I'd be curious to see how your idea would work, I suspect it may run into anti-trust law issues.
A conference on software patents and free software Posted May 2, 2010 1:42 UTC (Sun) by Simetrical (guest, #53439) [Link]
I can't see how. It's basically a big patent pool that will enforce its patents against anyone and everyone unless they cross-license all of their own patents. You have things like that in industry already. If MPEG-LA doesn't run afoul of antitrust law, I don't see how this would. You'd only run into antitrust law if you tried using your patents to drive competitors out of business or something, I'd think. Not if you simply demanded cross-licensing. Look at AMD and Intel.
A conference on software patents and free software Posted May 2, 2010 4:48 UTC (Sun) by zooko (subscriber, #2589) [Link]
By then we would have contributed great value to the world!
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