On Thu, Jul 12, 2018 at 01:10:33AM +0000, Tsunakawa, Takayuki wrote:
> From: Nico Williams [mailto:nico@cryptonector.com]
> > On Thu, Jul 12, 2018 at 12:29:12AM +0000, Tsunakawa, Takayuki wrote:
> > > How can one make defensive use of his patent if he allows everyone to
> > > use it royalty-free? Can he use his patent for cross-licensing
> > > negotiation if some commercial database vendor accuses his company
> > > that PostgreSQL unintentionally infringes that vendor's patent?
> >
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensive_termination
>
> Thank you, his looks reasonable to give everyone the grant. Then, I
> wonder if the community can accept patented code if the patent holder
> grants this kind of license.
I'm not a core member, but personally I'd be inclined to accept a
royalty-free, non-exclusive, non-expiring, transferrable, ..., grant
where the only condition is to not sue the patent holder.
I don't object to patents in general, but I think patent lifetimes are
way too long for software (because they are not commensurate with the
costs of developing software), and I understand that often one must
obtain patents for *defensive* purposes because there are sharks out
there. So I'm inclined to accept patents with defensive but otherwise
very wide grants.
Nico
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