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If you can't beat em, join em.If you can't beat em, join em.Posted Jun 1, 2004 4:07 UTC (Tue) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330)In reply to: If you can't beat em, join em. by error27 Parent article: An open letter from Alan Cox Patents don't work like that. If you invented it, you have to get the patent. An alternative is to build up a GPL patent pool: patent every interesting feature of your GPLed application, then license the patent for free use in GPLed applications, and then cross-license the patents with others in exchange for them adding their patents to the list of GPL-licensed patents. Some organization would need to be empowered to handle the cross-licensing; if enough patents could be obtained, the threat from outfits like Microsoft could be greatly reduced, as anyone producing software would need access to these patents to stay in business. They would need to deal. However, there would be no protection against lawyer-only shops that own patents; they wouldn't need to cross-license. I don't particularly like this strategy -- it's a huge problem for non-copylefted software. Perhaps anyone could be allowed to use a patent in the patent pool if full source is provided to all recipients and the recipients have all the rights the DFSG talks about. That, however, would have the effect of imposing copyleft on the non-copyleft world: you'd lose your patent license if you try to take the app proprietary. I'm afraid that the reason this scheme would be unlikely to work is that a sizable patent pool would have to be accumulated in a way that one organization could aggressively manage it. If it's decided to license patent X to Microsoft in exchange for patent Y, then some other free software project that needs patent Z instead will object.
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If you can't beat em, join em. Posted Jun 1, 2004 7:15 UTC (Tue) by error27 (subscriber, #8346) [Link] > If you invented it, you have to get the patent.I don't think you're a lawyer, but you may be right. Perhaps, I could let the third-party get the patent in my name and then relicense it to them. > An alternative is to build up a GPL patent pool That's not a viable alternative because no one in the Free software community has any cash and most people aren't organized enough to use the patent pool effectively in any case. In my scenario, you would only patent things when you have a good chance of making money through licensing or law suits. It's funny to me... You would think that Microsoft would be opposed to software patents since they have lost millions of dollars because of bogus software patents. Instead of trying to fix the patent laws they are taking advantage of them to hurt the competition. I think that if enough people adopted my plan, Microsoft would realise that the patent laws were broken and lobby to have them fixed.
If you can't beat em, join em. Posted Jun 1, 2004 16:55 UTC (Tue) by mmarq (guest, #2332) [Link] "...has any cash and most people aren't organized enough to use the patent pool effectively in any case."The commercial part of the community coul finance that,... and that include IBM, HP, SGI, Red Hat and more... of whom i think there could easly come more than enough money... ... and organisation wouldn't have to be that meticulous, because a patent pool its only a defensive mechanism.
If you can't beat em, join em. Posted Jun 1, 2004 16:35 UTC (Tue) by mmarq (guest, #2332) [Link] " However, there would be no protection against lawyer-only shops that own patents..."True, but you can agree that that could be much more easily "turned arround", or "overcomed" because those smaller "lawyer" shops, generaly only have a couple of patents, as could be easily understandable i belive, and even many of those could crap or with "prior-art",... but above all... "Lawyer only shops will never prosecute the typical Open source unware of patents, software developer, because there isn't any money on them... ...and a lawyer-only shop cost a fortune to maintain, and can only be feasible if there is a cash-cow of some sort that pour money in. Like in the Microsoft with SCO case.
hmmm... i would like a world without software patents also,... but the above argument its only a speculative scenario of possible drawbacks,... If an Open Body responsable for that pool achieves that leveling power, than Microsoft in view of the patents nature as to cross-license or lose the right to them... than software patents will cease to be a threat.
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