Software patents and free software: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 17:14, 9 June 2024

Revision as of 22:08, 20 October 2024

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"Patent retaliation" clauses are included in several [[free software licenses]]. The goal of these clauses is to create a penalty so as 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 license upon the initiation of such a lawsuit.

The [[Free Software Foundation]] included a narrow patent retaliation clause inEarly drafts 1 and 2 of version 3 of the GPL,[[GNU however,General thisPublic clauseLicense]] was(GPLv3) removedcontained inseveral draftpatent 3retaliation asclauses itsthat enforceabilityvaried andin effectivenessscope, wassome decidedof towhich bewere toolater dubiousremoved due to beconcerns worth theabout addedtheir complexityefficacy.<ref>{{cite web

|title=Richard Stallman speaking about GPLv3 in April 2007

|url=https://fsfe.org/activities/gplv3/brussels-rms-transcript.en.html#retaliation}}</ref> The final published version of GPLv3 contains a patent retaliation clause similar to those in the [[Apache License]] and [[Mozilla Public License]], which terminates rights granted by the license in response to litigation alleging patent infringement in the software.<ref>{{cite web |website=GNU Project |publisher=Free Software Foundation |url=https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#v3PatentRetaliation |title=GPL FAQ: Does GPLv3 have a 'patent retaliation clause'?}}</ref>

|url=https://fsfe.org/activities/gplv3/brussels-rms-transcript.en.html#retaliation}}</ref>

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

===Patent pools===