Microsoft seeks input on promise not to sue individuals

Posted Nov 15, 2006 23:21 UTC (Wed) by lgauthier (guest, #29101)
Parent article: Microsoft seeks input on promise not to sue individuals

Here's one suggestion for Microsoft I came up with as we cannot expect them to unilaterally pledge to license all their patent portfolio to free software projects:

Rather than trying to negotiate a patent covenant between Novell's customers and Microsoft, wouldn't it be better to have Microsoft agree to a "friendly patent infringement notification process", in which whenever a patent infringement is uncovered the copyright holders of the free software project involved would be given enough time to review (and possibly contest the issue) and in case the infringement is acknowledged enough time would be given to work around the patent (as you know it free software developers love to innovate... :-)).

Obviously some arbitration process is needed in case the copyright holders do not agree that a patent is infringed.

The key in this process would be that there is commitment not to sue anybody except in the worst cases where the parties cannot be conciliated. And Microsoft could also open the possibility as part of this process to license their patents to the Free Software community on a case by case basis if they were to consider it is the best option.

I think that if all parties are honest about their intents then it is possible to come to an agreement on similar terms as it will re-assure Novell's customers about the possible impact of IP-issues with free software distributed by Novell.

What do you think?

we don't want to hear about a bunch of garbage patents

Posted Nov 15, 2006 23:42 UTC (Wed) by stevenj (guest, #421) [Link]

Rather than trying to negotiate a patent covenant between Novell's customers and Microsoft, wouldn't it be better to have Microsoft agree to a "friendly patent infringement notification process", in which whenever a patent infringement is uncovered the copyright holders of the free software project involved would be given enough time to review (and possibly contest the issue) and in case the infringement is acknowledged enough time would be given to work around the patent (as you know it free software developers love to innovate... :-)).

I'm sure any large company like Microsoft (or IBM or Sun or...) could bury the FLOSS community in a slew of garbage patents that are supposedly being infringed, if they would ever be upheld. I don't think this would be productive.

From MS's perspective, this would engender yet more ill-will in the FLOSS community and the industry at large—any accusation of infringement, even if ostensibly "friendly", would (rightly) be seen as a threat against competitors, and might even spur retaliation from other patent-holders or anti-trust suits. From the FLOSS community's perspective, this would lead to loads of busywork to either work around or invalidate the patents. It couldn't be ignored because, once notified, infringers are subject to treble damages if they willfully continue to infringe.