Michael Poole <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Brian Thomas Sniffen writes: > >> Glenn Maynard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >> >> > This isn't claiming that the works of Alice or Bob are infringing >> > copyright; it's claiming that Charlie is infringing copyright. >> > Neither Alice nor Bob face license termination for each other's >> > work for suing Charlie over Charlie's use of those works; they'd >> > only lose the license to Charlie's derivative work. >> > >> > Or at least they shouldn't, if this type of license is implemented >> > properly. >> >> But that's where patents differ from copyright -- they have no concept >> of derivative works, only of protected methods. So if you sue >> claiming that the implementation in Charlie's is bad, you're also >> claiming the implementation in Alice's is bad. This is suing "the >> Licensor or any licensee" over that implementation. The suit is >> *motivated* by failure to comply with the license, but it's over >> patent infringement in Alice or Bob's code. > > You're mixing your examples in a way unclear to me, especially by > adding a vague "you" to the three-party example you started with. > > A) If "you" are Alice and sue Charlie for patent infringement, and he > has complied with your open patent license, he can use that license > as a defense.
You left out the interesting case -- Alice sues Charlie for patent infringement, and he has not complied with her license. >> > Take a simpler case. Alice writes a program. Bill contributes >> > somewhat to it--enough to have a copyright claim. John takes the >> > result, and violates the license. Bill sues John for violating >> > his part of the copyright. Does Bill lose his license to Alice's >> > work? No; he's not saying that Alice's work is in violation, >> > he's saying that John is in violation (through his act of distributing >> > without eg. offering source). >> >> But you can't sue for license violation, not of a free license -- all >> you can do is sue for patent infringement. So he does, in the patent >> case, have to claim infringement of his patent on that method. > > Perhaps you should inform IBM that they cannot sue SCO for GPL > violations, as they are currently doing -- or clarify what you mean by > "you can't sue for license violation, not of a free license." See > also the Netfilter team's recent copyright lawsuit in Germany. As far as I know, IBM is suing SCO for copyright infringement, and they both agree that the GPL has nothing to do with it -- SCO because it says the GPL isn't binding, IBM because it says SCO wasn't doing things the GPL licenses. -Brian -- Brian Sniffen [EMAIL PROTECTED]
