GNU Patent License and Patent Parties [LWN.net]

GNU Patent License and Patent Parties

Posted Aug 2, 2004 21:16 UTC (Mon) by smoogen (subscriber, #97)
Parent article: Linux Scare Tactics (Forbes)

Its time that we had a GNU patent license (and a Lesser GNU patent license), a crack team of patent lawyers+staff, and a bunch of patent parties. Everyone comes up with ideas, we pay the lawyers+staff to do the proper research/filing, and then they are all turned over to a Free Software Organization for their use. Then we start using the patents to make people free/open software their code because they have to!

Its just hacking the system (in the oldest sense of the word) to get it to do what you want.

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GNU Patent License and Patent Parties

Posted Aug 2, 2004 22:23 UTC (Mon) by lakeland (guest, #1157) [Link]

A couple problems with your idea:

1) The problem as I see it is frivolous patents from largely shell
companies. Say SCO had a patent they were suing 'linux' over. How could
'linux' counter-sue sco over a patent? SCO doesn't write any code anymore.
Real companies rarely, if ever, sue over patent infringement.

2) Filing patents costs _lots_. I'm convinced that money would be better
spent elsewhere.