Mercurial > thoughts

     1 #+title: Thoughts on Patents

     2 #+author: Robert McIntyre

     3 #+email: rlm@mit.edu

     4 #+description: 

     5 #+keywords: 

     6 #+SETUPFILE: ../../aurellem/org/setup.org

     7 #+INCLUDE: ../../aurellem/org/level-0.org

     8 

     9 

    10 (This is all based on my knowledge of American patent/copyright law.)

    11 

    12 * Copyright is normally a negative force

    13   

    14   Copyright is something the you are automatically granted whenever

    15   you create a work in some permanent form; you don't have to request

    16   it or anything. It lets you prevent other people from copying your

    17   work, reading your work, or creating derivitave works based on your

    18   work. 

    19 

    20 

    21 * GPL uses copyright as a positive force

    22 

    23 * Patents generally an inhibitive force.

    24 

    25   Patents are usually a negative force, one that allows you to stop

    26   other entities from using knowledge to their own advantage.

    27 

    28 * Google has created "neutral" patents via a pledge which attaches conditions to its patents.

    29   Google has a pledge at

    30   http://www.google.com/patents/opnpledge/pledge/ that says that for

    31   certain specified patents "we pledge not to sue any user,

    32   distributor or developer of open-source software on specified

    33   patents, unless first attacked."

    34 

    35   This is an interesting statement to me. With this pledge, Google has

    36   created "neutral" patents that allow open source software to

    37   develop, but do not particurally encourage it to develop. They have

    38   done this by attaching legally binding conditions on the enforcement

    39   of their patents via a pledge.

    40 

    41 * Positive Patents

    42   We can create patents that actively encourage openness by emulating

    43   the GPL. What it would take is a company that issues a more

    44   agressive pledge about its patents; Something along the lines of:

    45   

    46 #+begin_quote

    47   The Positive Patent Pledge, v0.1

    48 

    49   "We pledge to sue any entity that tries to sell/distribute any

    50   product that is covered by our patents. We will not settle for any

    51   amount of money but will instead ensure that the product will never

    52   see market, as is our right under patent law. 

    53 

    54   The only exception is if the product is open (all code/methods of

    55   construction is made pubically available under an open license), and

    56   the entity makes this same pledge for any patents relating to the

    57   product."

    58 #+end_quote

    59 

    60   This pledge, if taken by a company with enough patents, would slowly

    61   destroy the patent system by contaminating the entire patent network

    62   with patents that infect all dependent patents with this

    63   pledge. Companies that are considering patenting something will

    64   think twice, since they don't want to be responsible for costly

    65   legal battles with no monetary reward. They would be better off

    66   releasing their work to the public domain than patenting it.

    67 

    68   How might this hypothetical company (which is basically a noble

    69   patent trolling company) gain control of patents? They could use the

    70   normal patent troll methods of buying bulk patents from companies

    71   that are going out of business. However, they could also gather

    72   patents from individuals and companies who believe that the patent

    73   system is harmful to innovation, and simply donate their patents to

    74   the cause.

    75 

    76   How could this get enough money to fight these legal battles?

    77   Perhaps there could be a possibility of settling for money and

    78   requiring the company to make their relevant patents merely neutral

    79   instead of positive. Then, the positive patent pledge could read:

    80 

    81 #+begin_quote

    82   The Positive Patent Pledge v0.2

    83 

    84   "We pledge to sue any entity that tries to sell/distribute any

    85   product that is covered by our patents. We will not settle for any

    86   amount of money but will instead ensure that the product will never

    87   see market, as is our right under patent law. 

    88 

    89   The only exception is if the product is open (all code/methods of

    90   construction is made pubically available under an open license), and

    91   the entity makes this same pledge for any patents relating to the

    92   product, the entity can take the Google 'neutral patent pledge'

    93   instead of this pledge if they are a 'special exception'.

    94 #+end_quote

    95   

    96   The only way for a company to become a special exception would be

    97   for them to contribute monetairly to this hypothetical company.

    98 

    99
author	Robert McIntyre <rlm@mit.edu>
date	Mon, 01 Apr 2013 15:14:51 +0000
parents	a76185df0065
children	bffd7519431c