On Wed, Feb 02, 2005 at 12:52:58AM +0000, MJ Ray wrote: > These licences are not normally so considerate as to limit > themselves to swpat claims. Even the RPSL, which seems one of > the less offensive ones, says "any patent". I wouldn't mind so > much if I only lost patent permission that I didn't need anyway.
Err. Sorry if I'm being dense, but what type of patent, other than a software patent, might one claim a piece of software infringes? (I'm assuming we're talking about "if you claim this software infringes a patent, you lose something" licenses, and not "if you claim the original author infringes a patent".) > In the latter case, I lose the copyright licence in my home > jurisdiction too. An offensive patenter could sue my US > branch about some patent and the branch uses some patent > (either obtained or a patent not used for software at home) > to help defend it... it's not hard to see possible ways for > interactions to go cross-border, thanks to the Berne Union. :-( I think this is a legitimate problem, even ignoring jurisdictional issues (which I don't really care about--you're the same company, as far as I'm concerned, regardless of which branch you're using to interact with me). That is, I think it *is* a legitimate use of software patents to defend against attack from other software patents. It's not pleasant--no use of swpats are--but it's one of the only effective ways for an entity to protect itself. A company can legitimately want to hold patents as a defense against patent attacks, and at the same time legitimately and honestly have no interest in attacking other companies with them. This is a very difficult situation: no company is going to give a truly Free license to those patents, since they would render them useless as a defense (the attacker would be getting a license, too). Now, a patent license that says "you have a license to our software patents unless you bring litigation against us, in which case you lose it" might deal with that: if you attack me, my defenses become available; if you don't, I can't use them offensively. (However, "if you attack *this software*"-style clauses don't do that, since if you attack my other projects with your patents, my patents on this work don't become available.) -- Glenn Maynard -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
