The Open Patent Certification Mark Standards
Version 1.0
Patents in the Public Interest, Inc.

Acceptable Products and Services:

You may use the Open Patent certification mark only in connection with goods and services that meet one or more of the following criteria:

1. Software for which there exists at least one set of licenses, grants, and agreements for which all of the following is true:
   1. The set applies to the software in question such that any holder of a copy of the software may use, modify, and further distribute the software, subject to the conditions imposed by the components of the set and at no additional monetary cost.
   2. Each copyright license in the set meets at least two of the following conditions:
      1. The license meets all the requirements of the latest version of the Free Software Foundation's "Free Software Definition", according to the Free Software Foundation.
      2. The license meets all the requirements of the latest version of Software in the Public Interest, Inc.'s "Debian Free Software Guidelines", according to Software in the Public Interest, Inc
      3. The license meets all the requirements of the latest version of the Open Source Initiative's "Open Source Definition" according to the Open Source Initiative.
   3. With respect to any patents that may be incorporated into the software, the components of the set do not differentiate, or their end result is effectively the same as if they did not differentiate, between holders of a copy of the work and non-holders of a copy of the work as far as rights granted and restrictions imposed are concerned.
   4. Nothing in the set precludes any person from examining or reverse-engineering the software,
2. Any services related to the execution of software described in (A) above, and
3. Any goods whose licensing requirements are all effectively constrained by the restrictions in (A) above.
4. Any services, including consulting services and retail services, related to the construction, design, modification, production, marketing, or delivery of goods and services described in (A) or (B) above, such that the result or intended result can still be described by (A) or (B) above.

Acceptable Wording:

You must use the mark as an adjective, and you must capitalize the mark. It is requested that the trademark symbol (™)be used.

Examples:

This is an Open Patent™ Product.
This is an Open Patent™ Service.
An Open Patent™ Product.
Acme provides the following Open Patent™ Services: A, B, and C.
All programs on this disc are Open Patent™ programs.
Acme Widget-Finder is an Open Patent™ service.

It should be obvious that use of the mark, by itself and with no other wording around it, does not comply with this requirement. However, the use of the mark as one mark among others denoting certification-mark type qualities will be nonetheless be considered to comply with this requirement if the meaning of this abbreviated use in context is as clear as the non-abbreviated "Acceptable Wording" requirement and examples above. The purpose of allowing this abbreviated use is in order to allow the use of the mark in "feature list" type descriptions.

Acceptable Placement:

You may use the mark in advertisements, packaging, and internal and external documentation for the product or services.

Required Attribution:

You must attribute ownership and control of the mark to Patents in the Public Interest, Inc., in at least one of following ways.

1. With the statement: "Open Patent is a certification mark of Patents in the Public Interest, Inc."

2. By use of the domain name openpatents.org or www.openpatents.org at or near the certification mark. Note that in on-line documents this can easily be done by having the mark itself be a link to the domain.

Period of Standards Validity:

You may only execute new, valid placements of the mark under the terms of this version of the standards only until such time this version is superceded by a newer version.

You may maintain existing, valid placements of the mark according to this version of the standards for a period of up to six months after this version is superceded by a newer version.

Miscellaneous Notes:

1. Patents in the Public Interest, Inc. is in the process of creating a patent license. A future version of this Standard will also allow the mark to be used in relation to Goods and Services for which certain conditions of this patent license apply . If you would like to participate in the development of this patent license, please go to www.openpatents.org.
2. It is not required that goods and services be known to actually incorporate patents in order for the mark to be applicable. Assuming that all the conditions in this standard are met, it is enough that the components of the set of licenses applicable to the goods or services, (such as in "Applicable Products and Services", section B3), that relate in any way to patents in effect treat everyone the same with respect to patents. In order to maintain the mark once any patented method is incorporated into an updated version of the good or service, (or is later discovered to have already been incorporated into the good or service), the set of licenses then used will have to still maintain this same level playing field. Thus no matter the number of patents known to be incorporated into the good or service, the mark will continue to indicate, among other things, the existence of this same level playing field.
3. At the time of the writing of this standard, the Free Software Foundation's Free Software Definition and the list of licenses it considers to be meet those requirements, can be found at http://www.fsf.org/licensing/essays/free-sw.html and http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/index_html .
4. At the time of the writing of this standard, the Debian Free Software Guidelines of Software in the Public Interest, Inc., (http://spi-inc.org/ ), can be found at http://www.us.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines .
5. At the time of the writing of this standard, the Open Source Initiative's Open Source Definition and the list of licenses it considers to meet those requirements, can be found at http://opensource.org/docs/osd and http://opensource.org/licenses .