Patent suits not likely, says IP attorney (IT Manager's Journal)
Proprietary software companies could sue open source software developers or end users for patent infringement, but they probably won't, says one intellectual property attorney. If they do, the Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) plans to be ready. Though the threat of lawsuits is often heard rumbling over the horizon like an approaching storm, the potential benefits for patent holders probably aren't attractive enough to spark litigation, says James Gatto, a patent and intellectual property attorney with Pillsbury Winthrop law firm."
Posted Sep 30, 2005 0:08 UTC (Fri)
by proski (subscriber, #104)
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Posted Oct 1, 2005 11:03 UTC (Sat)
by copsewood (subscriber, #199)
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There may be some more marginal cases where a free software company might prefer to pay danegeld to avoid having to spend time on such litigation. We will probably never know the real extent to which this goes on - because the license fees offered will include a contractual obligation not to disclose this information in public. This possibility is potentially a more dangerous and insidious threat, which is only likely to be defeated if a free software recipient of a patent license demand is willing to call the bluff and publish it and deal with the consequences.
I suspect if an open source project is ever sued for patent infridgement, the motivation would be to kill it as a competitor rather than to extract some money from the developers. If a company lives off a single application, and there is a free alternative that may violate some patents, the company would sue no matter how bad it would look.
Getting money vs saving profits
I suspect few companies dependant upon revenues from a single product would be able to afford the litigation, if this were defended pro-bono supported by the resources the free software community in the country concerned could bring to bear upon this. The article also points out the extent to which such a lawsuit would anger the free software community against the company which were to attempt this.
Getting money vs saving profits