Brian Thomas Sniffen writes: > > 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.
Why is that an interesting case? More specifically, under what conditions is it different than Alice suing Charlie for copyright infringement under a patent-agnostic license such as the GPL? > > 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. This is not a useful distinction. By definition, copyright infringement is when someone exercises a reserved right without license. Michael Poole
