Software patents and free software: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 14:55, 10 March 2007

Revision as of 15:03, 10 March 2007

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"Patent retaliation" clauses are included in several [[free software licences]], including version 3 of the [[GNU General Public License]] (GPL). The goal of these clauses is to discourage the licensee (the user/recipient of the software) from suing the licensor (the provider/author of the software) for [[patent infringement]] by terminating the licence upon the initiation of such a lawsuit.

The [[Free Software Foundation]] included a weaknarrow patent retaliation clause in drafts of version 3 of the GPL. The intent is to prevent users of free software from patenting their improvements upon the software, and then suing the original developers if subsequent upgrades to the free version infringe the patent.

[[Free software licences]] like the [[Mozilla Public License]] and the [[GNU General Public License]] contain clauses to reduce the problem for [[free software]].

Examples of broader clauses are those of the [[Apache licence]] and the [[Mozilla Public License]].

=== Weak ===

In "weak" patent retaliation, the litigation over patent infringement is restricted to patents pertaining to the licensed software.

The [[Free Software Foundation]] included a weak patent retaliation clause in drafts of version 3 of the GPL. The intent is to prevent users of free software from patenting their improvements upon the software, and then suing the original developers if subsequent upgrades to the free version infringe the patent.

=== Strong ===

"Strong" patent retaliation does not include the same limitation: if the licensee sues the licensor for infringement of any patent at all, the licence is terminated. {{Fact|date=March 2007}}

==Defensive patent strategy==