Ask Slashdot: Open Patent Licenses? 96
felipe13 writes "We are working on a new piece of code that will be protected under a GPL license, this is fine for the code itself, but what about our 'innovations'? Are there any 'Open Patent License' models similar to the GPL or Creative Commons? We have Google patenting the highlight of search occurrences, Facebook protecting the word 'Book,' and Apple registering body movements. This is becoming ridiculous to a point. Now the patent trolls are making a killing as well. Does the open source community has a good way to protect its innovations and inventions? There are some initiatives to buy patents and release them to the public or at least place them is a protected area, but where would my very small company register a new way to include titles in a private message? Where could Drupal patent the use of 'hooks' to let developers interact with the core of the application? (If they invented this, I am not really sure.) I don't want to wake up in 10 years and discover that X huge company patented my innovation and that now I actually have to pay them for it." There's OpenPatents.org, there's the Open Source Hardware and Design Alliance, there's CERN's newly-updated Open Hardware license, and there are domain-specific patent sharing organizations like the Open Patent Alliance; what else is out there?
Patent it (Score:4, Informative)
GPL is based on copyright which is automatic.
Patents are not automatic, so you need to patent your invention, and worry about (free) licensing afterwards.
If you wanted something more BSD-like, publish without patenting.
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I'm surprised to not see gpl3 liste d.
It did a few things, but patents was the one that made the most sense.
(I think the clause to prevent what MS did with selling is the worse, and likely un-enforcable).
I'm ambivelant on the tivoisation clause, but the sueing for use of a patent in software revoking a license is very good.
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I don't get why open innovation network [openinventionnetwork.com] wasn't mentioned? That's pretty much defensive patent licensing for free, and clearly defined.
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It is run by an ex-hedge fun manager, does not sound like someone I would trust with my "Intellectual Property". Heck, I don't think I would trust one of those with the change in my sofa.
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if you think having an ex hedge fund manager own the OIN has something to do with why you wouldn't trust it, I'd like to remind you of a: the list of licensees (which is huge - google and redhat for two significant names -microsoft and apple quite clearly absent) [openinventionnetwork.com] and B: If you had a fucking clue you'd have signed up with OIN last year to prevent SCO/MS/Attachmate threats in the first place. [groklaw.net]
From groklaw:
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I was more making a joke. Joining it sounds good, but I still don't trust hedge fund managers.
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well my apologies for missing it then :) I don't mind not trusting hedge fund managers, but it is important to look at what's going on here. Something that is almost explicitly anti (a bad thing - antifud in this case), should not be automatically assumed to be a bad thing as well.
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Copyrights are expensive, need to be filed, and don't really do much until you sue someone for violating your patent. An "Open" patent doesn't make much sense; who owns the protected innovation? Everyone? Who can be sued for using it? No one? People who use it in non-GPL'd code? Who is going to initiate the lawsuit?
Prior art, not prior patent, is what kills a later, competing patent. However, both cases are handled exactly the same way: through expensive lawyers. In this case, even when you're in the right,
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First not only am I not your lawyer, I'm not a lawyer at all, so this isn't legal advice; if you have questions like the above you probably want to go talk to the FSF or SFLC who are quite likely to be willing to arrange cheap legal advice.
What sakdoctor said is probably true that we need people in the free software community who actively patent. Having patented it however, the licensing not be like the GPL. You also don't want to get involved in people like the Open Patent Alliance. They seem to be a
Proving lack of copying (Score:2)
in copyrights, copying is relatively cheaply and efficiently proven and so people respect them by default
Is lack of copying also "relatively cheaply and efficiently proven"? Say I've written a song. How do I know whether I am the legitimate author or whether it's an unauthorized derivative work of something I had heard in grade school?
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Is lack of copying also "relatively cheaply and efficiently proven"?
When sued by a corporation in the USA your only hope is a SLAPP lawsuit. Otherwise I guess it's going to cost.
Say I've written a song. How do I know whether I am the legitimate author or whether it's an unauthorized derivative work of something I had heard in grade school?
You know that because you know you didn't copy. This may or, more likely, may not help in court.
Statutory Invention Registration (Score:5, Informative)
Alternately, if you wish your invention to be in the public domain, you can file for Statutory Invention Registration [uspto.gov]. This will cause the filing to be in the USPTO database and thus more likely to be found during a prior art search for future patent applications than if it was just published in a journal.
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What the parent poster says is correct. Also, SIRs are cheaper than filing a regular patent application.
The pending patent reform bill would eliminate SIRs, however, probably in part because publication is automatic at 18 months. All published patent applications go into the searchable database that examiners use.
If you file a patent application (not a provisional, mind you), it will publish 18 months later as long as you satisfy various formal requirements at filing (payment of fees, properly executed de
Document, document, document (Score:4, Informative)
"Files first" does not invalidate prior art. (Score:3)
I do not think that is the case. I believe that under both "files first" and "invents first" prior art can cause the patent application to fail. I think the individual hurt by the move to "files first" is the inventor trying to work in secret, trying to postpone filing for the patent in order to maximize the number of years on the market during patent protection and minimize the number of years under development during patent protection.
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Well that... and the law. First-to-file vs. first-to-invent and the prior art obstacle to getting a patent awarded are two wholly different segments of patent law.
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I smell disingenuity.
That's funny. Most people use their eyes, rather than their nose, to read pending legislation. You did read it before jumping to conclusions, didn't you?
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Under the current patent statute, 35 USC 102 a person can get a patent unless "the invention was known or used by others in this country, or patented or described in a printed publication in this or a foreign country, before the invention thereof by the applicant for patent..."
Under the version recently passed by the House, a person can get a patent unless "the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effec
Trivial to describe in a printed publication ... (Score:2)
Under the version recently passed by the House, a person can get a patent unless "the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention..."... Instead of being "know or used" it has to be printed, patented or "otherwise available to the public."
No problem, create a small ad that describes the invention. Place that ad in your local newspaper. The letter of the law cuts both ways.
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IANAL, but my understanding is that even if/when the U.S. switches to a "first to file" system, prior art will always remain relevant... it just complicates things because you have to establish that the prior art exists before the filing of the patent, not before the "inventor" claims to have invented the innovation. I guess one could argue this standard would be easier to meet since the act of filing a patent typically comes well after the process of inventing something, except maybe in the case of so-cal
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That said, I'm really unhappy about the U.S. seriously considering moving away from the "first to invent" system. Yes, our system is more litigious, and therefore one can argue it's more costly, but also seems less fair if someone legitimately did invent something first but couldn't afford to beat the other guy to the patent office.
If he can't afford to file first, then he certainly can't afford to defend his patent. He should have published the idea. If he was planning to keep the idea secret instead, then I'm afraid to say that this is an example of the patent system actually working and achieving it's main aim; to encourage inventions to be published.
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It is also necessary that you can prove the date of documents related to the invention.
So I would suggest that the documents need to be public on the web (so they can be archived by the Internet Archive)
and/or run through a timestamp server to get a timestamped digital signature associated with each document.
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the problem is most envelopes can be steamed open you would need to somehow prove that the envelope has not been tampered with.
I would suggest you use something like http://www.uline.com/BL_1552/Self-Seal-Flat-Tyvek-Envelopes [uline.com] (nearly impossible to open without destroying the seal) and sign the seal a couple times.
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My understanding of "file first" (IANAL and all that jazz) is that if a "pre-filing inventor" comes forward, the "filed" patent still becomes invalid (as the pre-filing inventor counts as prior art). The only difference is that currently the pre-filing inventor would be awarded the patent instead (as he proves he invented it first). In a "file first" system, he doesn't get a patent- the patent is just struck off, never to be repeated.
If I've understood it right, that sounds like the better system as it thin
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Now if only something could be done to reduce the benefits to trolls who buy up discarded patents just to file suits, never producing new knowledge nor any products...
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your work will^H^H^H^Hshould qualify as prior art
I fixed that for you. In this day and age where a patent clerk's "research" consists of searching for his rubber stamp to approve the app and grant the patent (usually on stuff a simple goo
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IANAL, but I have been involved with my share of patent law, both in defending against patent infringement and in applying for patents. Your assertions suggest the only exposure you've had to the patent process comes from reading Slashdot headlines. There is no rubber stamp at the USPTO. An examiner spends months to years on a single application, researching prior art, questioning the inventor(s), and judging the novelty of the invention. Many times, an application will go through a rejection/revision cy
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This means the patent holder is typically faced with losing his intellectual property rights altogether.
Unless the probability of independent invention of the same thing over the next twenty years or so is vanishingly small, you have no business being granted a government monopoly in the first place. It also means that whatever you "invented" wasn't much of an invention at all, just a minor and altogether obvious advance on existing practice.
The problem of course is that determining what is "obvious" by th
open patent licenses (Score:1)
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Innovations and inventions of FOSS?
The majority of recent innovations in software have originated in FOSS and then been copied into commercial software. For example, Microsoft's . Even re-implementations can be innovative in the way that they do those re-implementations and Linux certainly shows that.
Perhaps when FOSS moves beyond reimplementing proprietary operating systems, applications and tools this will become a more important issue.
There are 14 thousand packages available for my current system and although a large proportion of that are libraries, it compares with a few hundred in a plain system. I think we are beyond just implementing the base operating system.
Going
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cvs / git - CVS was the revision control system to introduce
I tend to agree with your post over all and don't want to be pedantic but wasn't CVS to replace Bell Labs SCCS (Source Code Control System)? And didn't other source code revision control systems exist before SCSC?
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Isn't the real answer to push for reform? (Score:2)
As maybe "innovations and inventions" in software if you're not a huge mega corp is incompatible with being in the the US anymore.
IP 101 (Score:2)
IP 101 -
Copyright is automatic whenever you create some sort of work, be it art, software or whatever. Published or unpublished. It stops people copying your stuff and passing it off as their name. "Derived works" would include some sort of that work (copied code, your music or whatever) and is illegal unless its 'fair use'
Trademarks: A trademark is protecting a particular name to stop other people from naming their things similarly. For example, if I'm selling my "YouProduct" range, I don't want a competit
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Penultimate sentence should be "If /. patented*"
sorry.
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Minor Nit:
I can't look at slashdot's source code and copy most of it and use it for my own work because of COPYRIGHT.
Isn't slashcode open source? Or did they stop doing that?
Yeah... it's called "prior art" (Score:2)
Just release it. Once public, it become prior art and cannot be patented by someone else. After a period of time (~ one year), you can't patent it yourself anymore either.
You know, for a website that loves to pontificate about patent law every 10 minutes, Slashdot and its editors sure don't seem to know jack shit about the subject..."
(DISCLAIMER: If one of the various "patent reform" bills makes it through Congress and becomes law, and the U.S. moves from a "first to invent" system to a "first to file" s
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First to file has no impact on prior ar., It only impacts in the case of two inventors who claim the same invention.
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Just release it. Once public, it become prior art and cannot be patented by someone else.
Unfortunately this is not the reality. The reality is that once a bad patent is granted--which poor quality patent examination in the US seems to allow to happen with depressing frequency--it is difficult and expensive to invalidate it. There are moves afoot to allow for prior-art submissions by the public earlier in the process, but really, do you want to spend the rest of your life keeping an eye on every patent application that may have your innovations as prior art? The clowns who do this stuff profe
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Software patents are a complicated dance, optimized and perverted (from the original purpose of patents) to increase the barriers to entry for competing software developers. The notion that patents can be countered by prior art is flawed in the world of software for several reasons, not the least of which is a dedicated corporate legal team finding other existing patents to pin on you. The pressure to cross-license with a huge corporation reinforces this barrier, and few individuals have the time and money
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...yes, because stuff "being out there" works so well now.
Statutory Invention Registration (Score:2)
If you file for a Statutory Invention Registration (or file for a patent and drop it after 18 months), then your filing will be in the USPTO database and thus more likely to be found during a prior art search for future patent applications than if it was just published in a journal.
The weather is very nice on the Carribean islands (Score:2)
where you might wish to consider basing your open-invention-based business.
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Theres five and one for free. I'm sure you will be able to point out some systems which had part of the functionality of these, however that is the nature of innovation
Poor Man's Patent (Score:1)
An engineering teacher of mine once told me of the "Poor Man's Patent". It is pretty air-tight and really cheap.
As mentioned before, document heavily through the whole process, an periodically send your documentation to yourself through USPS. Because USPS is a government agency, the date stamp on the envelop is considered legit. All you have to do is know what is inside each envelope and DON'T OPEN them. If who came up with the idea first ever came into question, just make sure you present the envelope to a
Hooks (Score:2)
Where could Drupal patent the use of 'hooks' to let developers interact with the core of the application? (If they invented this, I am not really sure.)
No they did not. Hooks [catb.org] are ancient. [gnu.org]
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Publish? (Score:2)
Great advice (Score:1)
GPLv3 (Score:2)
Be sure to use the GPLv3 license [fsfe.org] if your primary goal is to perpetuate the openness of the patentable attributes of the work you release and its derivatives.
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Do I HAVE to register my inventions?
Whether you do or not, the published work still counts as prior art. The main difference is when that prior art is applied. Registering your invention will make it more likely that the patent office will notice the prior art when someone else tries to patent the same idea and thus more likely for that patent to be denied. If you just publish in a public place (even a reputable journal), then the patent office probably won't see that prior art, will grant the patent, and you could be sued. Your published doc
Depends on What You Mean by "Protect" (Score:2)
If you mean keep something from being patented or least being well enforced later then yes, just publish your source code. It then becomes prior art.
Why Worry? (Score:2)
Hm... just use a regular patent? (Score:1)
How about filing regular patents and refrain from enforcing them against others in the F/OSS community, just like Red Hat does [redhat.com]?
Unfortunately that does require plenty of cash for litigation if a big corporation decides to challenge the patents anyway.
Patent it properly anyway. Use it to enforce GPL (Score:2)
Open Patents (Score:2)
The idea behind the Open Patent License is for owners of patents (and non-patent IP that still ends up behaving like patents from a practical real-world extent--amazing how that actually happens) to be able to license them in a copyleft-type manner, ideally handling more than just the software patent situation.
The goal is for all players to be able to participate in a growing patent pool and have open and free access to this pool under copyleft-type conditions, whether they're small players or larger player
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Hello Mark, great to see you here.
I did look into your project, but I was not very clear about how it works or if it was updated.
I will get in touch with you and see if we can cooperate.
Thanks.
Lawyers (Score:1)
Don't release in the US (Score:2)