Re: Oracle indemnifies PostgreSQL on its patents

Jeroen T. Vermeulen wrote:
> On Sun, April 1, 2007 01:32, Tom Lane wrote:
> 
> > The idea of OIN is to have a large patent pool that can be
> > counter-asserted against anyone who doesn't want to play nice.
> > Mutual assured destruction in the patent sphere, if you will.
> 
> And from the participants' point of view, I suppose the big attraction
> must be that they do away with a threat to their patents.  If you have a
> patent that matches what some open project (not worth suing) has been
> doing for the past few years, then anyone else you might want to sue about
> the patent could point to that project and say "if you have a valid
> patent, why didn't you say something when they infringed it?"

You can be as selective as you want about enforcing patents ---
copyright/trademark enforcement does require consistent enforcement.

--  Bruce Momjian  <bruce@momjian.us>          http://momjian.us EnterpriseDB
http://www.enterprisedb.com
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