PPI OPEN PATENT LICENSE

Version 0.1.9

WORK IN PROGRESS

DO NOT DISTRIBUTE

Copyright (C) 1999 Patents in the Public Interest, Inc.
1384 Lakeside Way NE #107, Atlanta, GA 30319-2068 USA

Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.

1. Preamble

***Modeled on GPL, needs extensive editing***

Software patents are generally considered to be destructive to progress; but to stay competitive, companies often find it necessary to make use of them nonetheless—for cross-licensing purposes if nothing else. But as more parties try to protect themselves by amassing software patents, more software patent licenses become necessary in order to create any product, whether this product is made by a commercial institution, an academic institution, an ad hoc collection of individuals, or a single individual.

The standard way around this problem with patents in general is the creation of patent pools in which the players have licenses to use the pooled patents under specified conditions. However, usually participation is severely limited.

This limited solution still doesn't solve the problem. All the players are still trapped in a Prisoner's Dilemma, in which they may perceive an advantage in defecting to a suboptimal strategy.

For information on game theory and the Prisoner's Dilemma, see ***Add reference***.

For instance, companies may find that they require patents to protect themselves from others. (Repeating here.) They can then use some of those patents to successfully enter cross-licensing agreements, seemingly solving the problem, but then if for whatever reason they perceive a temporary advantage in defecting from cooperation by not cross-licensing some of the patents, this triggers other parties' entrance into the same Prisoner's Dilemma, creating the need for more cross-licensing and the need for more patents to cross-license with. Everyone involved might well be better off cooperating to begin with, but everyone perceives advantages in individually defecting in certain cases. Unfortunately, the costs of all the hidden defections along the way are masked, as are the benefits that would have been accrued had there been cooperation by all the parties all along.

Thus, cooperation seems more expensive than it actually is, and defection seems cheaper than it actually is. In this way, over the long term cooperation is discouraged and defection is encouraged.

One of the design goals of the Open Patent License is to encourage cooperation. Another design goal is a vague notion that it would generally be a good thing if, when submitting patents to the Open Patent Pools created by this license, that you would be benefitting yourself as well as anyone as generous or more generous than yourself.

In this way the game theory payoff matrices can be biased towards cooperation.

The hope is to design a system that shows when it is in the interests of everyone (licensor, licensees, and end users) to cooperate, and in those cases make such cooperation as easy and cost-free as possible. As a whole, it is assumed that open cooperation in the furtherence of scientific progress will be to the benefit of practically everyone.

In the case where one party decides to defect, (not join the license, or join using more limited Options), the costs of defection are not hidden, nor are the benefits of cooperation, giving an honest portrayal of relevant costs and benefits, this licenses' admitted bias towards scientific progress notwithstanding.

In order for this license to be the most useful to the greatest number of people, there are also options that will likely to be found useful by organizations wishing to license or cross-license their software and non-software patents.

There is a strong likelihood that some of the problems that make software patents so objectionable will slowly start to apply to non-software patents as manufacturing times and costs lower. If there were a certain device that now requires millions of dollars to design, tens of millions to build a manufacturing facility for, and then hundreds of dollars to manufacture per piece, but in a few years costs only a few minutes work with a total cost of only few cents for an individual to design and then create a single copy in some sort of automated assembly device, then to prevent a party from cheaply making and using improvements and refinements of that design, and to prevent the cheap manufacture of that device by effectively causing the licensing costs to become the dominant factor in the total cost of the device, would vastly slow progress and be to hardly anyone's benefit.

As time goes on and manufacturing times and costs drop, this will become more of an issue, as the full impact of the problem increases for both organizations and individuals. There are options allowing an organization to license non-software patents after a sliding-scale time period has occurred.

For completeness, this license also allows an organization to choose to openly license their patents with no restrictions on anyone. Noting that in the past there have been cases where organizations have in fact done this (one of the best examples being Volvo licensing their 3-point seat belt / air bag (?) patents in ???? ***find reference*** in the interest of saving lives), this license would be incomplete if it didn't contain terms under which an organization could do so.

Lastly, because legal instruments restricting the look-and-feel of software products have a similar restraining effect on progress, these look-and-feel instruments can also be submitted and used under this license.

There are other legal instruments that effectively act similarly to patents. These legal instruments can also be submitted and used under this license.

2. Definitions

OPL

Open Patent License. (This license.)

PPI

Patents in the Public Interest.

Owner

Includes any person or organization that has a right to sublicense the intellectual property in question.

Software Patent

If a change in program code, whether executable or source code, affects whether the program's operation will infringe a patent, then for the purpose of this license, that patent is considered a Software Patent. A patent is also considered a Software Patent under the terms of this license if it is specifically defined to be so by the owner when placing the patent into any OPL patent pool.

Business method patents also fall under the definition of software patents.

Genetic information is considered to be program code.

All process patents will also fall under the definition of software patents as of January 1, 2015.

***Should the following be completed or deleted? Adding in an extensive list of patent classes/subclasses may end up detracting from the license by making in more confusing. Are the above definitions straightforward and clear enough?***

In addition, patents that are or would be catagorized in the following international patent catogorazation catagories and subcatagories are also considered to be software patents:

Class	Subclass
...	...

Non-software Patent

All patents that do not fall under the definition of a "Software Patent" given above are considered Non-software Patents under the terms if this license, as are patents additionally defined to be non-software patents by the owner placing them into any of the OPL pools.

Note that a Patent might be both a Software Patent and a non-Software patent.

The person or organization submitting a patent under any of the Options of this license may not prevent a patent from additionally being considered a Software Patent.

GPL

Refers to the Free Software Foundation's "General Public License", version 2.0 or any later version.

Open Source Definition

Refers to the Open Source Definition as defined by Open Source, Inc. ***OSI, SPI, both? Difficult to avoid messy politics here***

Open Source

A license that has been certified as being Open Source, by having been "OSI-Certified" by Open Source, Inc.

Describes software distributed under and Open Source license only.

Applicable Patents

Refers to other patents incorporated into the software or device in question, if:

1. Those patents are currently judged by a court of law to be infringed upon by this software or device, or

2. Those patents are licensed to be used in this software or device.

A mere unsubstantiated claim that the software or device infringes a patent does not cause the patent to fall under the definition of an "applicable patent."

Use

All references to a licensed right to "use" a patent shall refer to the full rights to "make", "use", or "sell" that patent.

Look & Feel Intellectual Property

Any legal instrument protecting a look and feel to an interface, including, but not limited to:

• Trade Dress protections for software;

• user-interface patents;

• user-interface copyrights;

• Copyrights on Programming Interfaces; and

• Copyrights on Database Schemas.

The structure, format, and command structure used in any of the above are included in this definition, but not the rights to any specific binary or source code implementation.

Patent-Like Intellectual Property

Any legal instrument other than a patent that effectively restricts the use of an invention or idea in a similar way that patents do.

Patent-like intellectual properties include, but are not limited to:

• Any non-patent legal instrument protecting a look and feel to a software interface;

• Trade Dress protections for software;

• User-interface copyrights;

• Copyrights on Programming interfaces;

• Copyrights on Database Schemas.

• Copyrights on Databases.

• Any restrictions on rights to read, use, and relay information learned from examining existing works that are available to the general public, (as especially opposed to restrictions on reverse engineering, or making use of, or distributing information gained from such activity)

(Note that there is some overlap between Patent-Like and Look & Feel Intellectual Properties.)

Patent-like intellectual properties do not include:

• Full rights to the specific code used in a specific implementation of a look and feel to a software interface, programming interface, user interface, or full rights to the specific code that is being read or reverse engineered.
• Limitations placed on use of knowledge that can be gained only by agreeing to a non-disclosure agreement while the information is still a trade secret and cannot be discovered or derived through products or information potentially or actually available to the general public.

PLIPs

Patent-Like and Look & Feel Intellectual Properties.

Incoporates Patent-Like Intellectual Properties and Look & Feel Intellectual Properties.

3. Submitting patents and PLIPs

The following table won't be in the final license, but I've put it here to help sort out what the Options mean. (Note that it's not really readable in lynx.)

Available Options

To allow patents or PLIPs to be used under the terms and conditions of this license, an owner must submit the patents or PLIPs under any of the Options as described below:

Option 1

To invoke Option 1 of this license, an authorized person can certify:

"I hereby license in perpetuity the following patents and PLIPs under the terms and conditions of the Open Patent License, Option 1: < list of patents and PLIPs>"

When this is done, the specified patents and PLIPs become available under the terms and conditions of the Open Patent License, Pool 1.

Option 2

To invoke Option 2 of this license, an authorized person can certify:

"I hereby license in perpetuity the following patents and PLIPs under the terms and conditions of the Open Patent License, Option 2: < list of patents and PLIPs>"

When this is done, the specified patents and PLIPs become available under the terms and conditions of the Open Patent License, Pools 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.

Option 3

To invoke Option 3 of this license, an authorized person can certify:

"I hereby license in perpetuity the following patents and all PLIPs owned by (Organization) under the terms and conditions of the Open Patent License, Option 3: < list of patents>"

When this is done, the specified patents and all the organization's PLIPs become available under the terms and conditions of the Open Patent License, Pools 1, 3, 4, 5, and 6.

Option 4

To invoke Option 4 of this license, an authorized person can certify:

"I hereby license in perpetuity all Software Patents and all PLIPs owned by (organization) under the terms and conditions of the Open Patent License Option 4."

When this is done, all Software Patents owned by the organization become available under the terms and conditions of the Open Patent License, Pools 1, 4, 5, and 6.

When this is done, all PLIPs owned by the organization become available under the terms and conditions of the Open Patent License, Pools 1, 3, 4, 5, and 6.

Option 5

To invoke Option 5 of this license, an authorized person can certify:

"I hereby license in perpetuity all software Patents and all PLIPs owned by (organization) under the terms and conditions of the Open Patent License Option 5. In addition, the scheduling delay inherent in Option 5 for non-software patents is hereby waived for the following patents: < list of patents>"

When this is done,

1. All Software Patents owned by the organization become available under the terms and conditions of the Open Patent License, Pools 1, 4, 5, and 6;

2. All PLIPs owned by the organization become available under the terms and conditions of the Open Patent License, Pools 1, 3, 4, 5, and 6;

3. The patents specified in "< list of patents>" above become available under the terms and conditions of the Open Patent License Pools 1, 5, and 6; and

4. all remaining patents owned by the organization become available under the terms and conditions of the Open Patent License Pools 1, 5, and 6 under the following schedule:

   All patents:

   • more than 10 years from date of invention starting 01-Jan-2005; then

   • more than 5 years from date of invention starting 01-Jan-2010; then

   • more than 2 years from date of invention starting 01-Jan-2014; then

   • more than 1 year from date of invention starting 01-Jan-2018; then

   • more than 6 months from date of invention starting 01-Jan-2025; then

   • whose date of invention is 01-Jan-2030 or later, starting 01-Jan-2030.

Option 6

To invoke Option 6 of this license, an authorized person can certify:

"I hereby license in perpetuity all Patents and all PLIPs owned by (organization) under the terms and conditions of the Open Patent License Option 6."

When this is done,

a) All Software Patents owned by the organization become available under the terms and conditions of the Open Patent License Pools 1, 4, 5, and 6.

b) All PLIPs owned by the organization become available under the terms and conditions of the Open Patent License Pools 1, 3, 4, 5, and 6.

c) all remaining patents owned by the organization become available under the terms and conditions of the Open Patent License Pool 1 and 6.

Option 7

An authorized person can certify:

"I hereby license in perpetuity the following patents and PLIPs under the terms and conditions of the Open Patent License, Option 7: < list of patents>"

When this is done, the specified patents and PLIPs become available under the terms and conditions of the Open Patent License, Pools 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7. For the purposes of this license, any other patent or PLIP that has been been licensed in perpetuity royalty-free, with no additional disclaimers, limitations, or conditions attached, is also considered to be in the Open Patent License Pools 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7.

Limitations on submitting and removing patents and PLIPs

Waiting Period

Patents and PLIPs will not be available for use under this license until 10 calendar days after their certification statement has been made. The organization may withdraw the statement within that time. If the certification statement is withdrawn, then it will have had no affect on the licensing of patents covered under this license.

Removals after waiting period not allowed

After the 10 day waiting period, any patent or PLIP placed, or any patent scheduled to be placed into any particular pool may not be withdrawn from this license. The certification statement serves as a promise in perpetuity that the patents and PLIPs in question will always be available for use under the conditions this license, or for some patents in the case of Option 5, that they will become available in perpetuity after a defined delay after the date of invention. Removal or planned removal of patches placed, or certified to be placed, into any of these Open Patent Pools, is not allowed. For instance, Patents which have an invention date during the time Option 6 was in force will be available for use under the terms and conditions of Open Patent Pool 6, even if the patent was applied-for or granted after the organization withdrew from Option 6.

However, this license does not attempt to impose agreements about patents for ideas and discoveries not yet made. Organizations can remove themselves from the terms and conditions of any Option of this license, ridding themselves of any benefits or obligations associated with agreeing to this license, except for the previously-mentioned limitation that once Patents have been placed or have been promised to be placed in any of the Patent Pools defined in this license by the invocation of any of the Options of this license, these Patents may not be removed from their respective Pools.

Special exception on removal after waiting period

As a special exception to the previous section, until December 31, 1999, organizations have the singular option to withdraw utterly and completely from this agreement, withdrawing their previously-licensed patents as well as any future patents that would have become available under this license.

The purpose for the inclusion of this special exception is to allow companies to enter into this agreement "safely" during a time in which the full ramifications of doing so may be unclear. It is assumed that by January 1, 2000, not only will enough companies have entered the license in one form or another to make it clear what advantages accrue upon entering, but by then the agreement will be depended upon to the extent that the action of one company entering and leaving this agreement and thus taking all their patents (promised and actual) with them, could be disastrous to others who might have based their research or business plans on these patents that were made available, or promised to be made available.

This exception is a compromise between the uncertainty many will feel upon entering into this agreement when it is first available to the public, and the damage many will feel if others are free to utterly defect from the agreement after things stabilize.

Further Limitations Disallowed

The licenser may not add any additional disclaimers, limitations, or conditions to the certification statements for each Option. If any additional limitations or conditions are added to the certified statement, (other than the specification of the organization, the Option chosen, the list of patents, the credentials of the authorized person and/or other proof that the certification is genuine), then that statement is invalid with respect to this license. Such an invalid statement is to be ignored under the terms and conditions of this license; it will be understood not to affect the licensing of the patents in question in any manner whatsoever.

However, as described elsewhere, the licensor can specify a name and short description to be used in documenting non-patent PLIPs that have been submitted under the terms and conditions of this license. How, when, and whether this is to be done may be changed in future versions of this license.

4. Using Patents and PLIPs from the Open Patent Pools

Basics

Pool 1

Patents and PLIPs in Pool 1 may be used without royalties in any work distributed under an Open Source license as defined by the owner of the Open Source certification mark.

Note that the right to use the patents in this pool is only granted for a work while that work is distributed and used under an Open Source license. This would, for instance, always be the case for a work distributed under the GPL, (an Open Source license), as the specifics of the GPL require that other works incorporating any part of the GPL work also be distributed under the GPL. It would not be the case, for instance, for a work that incorporated parts of an LGPL work (another Open Source license) if the "work as a whole" were used or distributed under a license that did not conform to the Open Source definition. It would not be the case for a work that was once distributed under the BSD license when later distributed under a different license. It would not be the case for a work once released as public domain and later incorporated into a proprietary work distributed under a license that does not conform to the Open Source definition.

Pool 2

Patents and PLIPs in Pool 2 may be used without royalties in any work for which all other applicable patents and PLIPs are available in Pool 2.

Pool 3

Patents and PLIPs in Pool 3 may be used without royalties in any work for which all other applicable patents and PLIPs are available in Pool 3, under the general terms and conditions of this license, by any organization that is currently under the terms and conditions of Option 3 of this license.

Pool 4

Patents and PLIPs in Pool 4 may be used without royalties in any work for which all other applicable patents and PLIPs are available in Pool 4, by any organization that is currently under the terms and conditions of Option 4 of this license.

Pool 5

Patents and PLIPs in Pool 5 may be used without royalties in any work for which all other applicable patents and PLIPs are available in Pool 5, by any organization that is currently under the terms and conditions of Option 5 of this license.

Pool 6

Patents and PLIPs in Pool 6 may be used without royalties in any work for which all other applicable patents and PLIPs are available in Pools 6, by any organization that is currently under the terms and conditions of Option 6 of this license.

Pool 7

Patents and PLIPs in Pool 7 may be used without royalties in any work.

Documentation requirements

Products incorporating patents or PLIPs under the terms and conditions of this license must include a verbatim copy of this license in a file named PATENTS.

To use patents or PLIPs from pools from this license, the product must document the patents and PLIPs in a file named PATENTS.INC: ***Maybe these aren't the best filenames. Also, what really needs to be required here? Try to make sure older product revisions with incorrect documentation can still be manufactured/downloaded. Extensive review needed here***

This product may incorporate any of the following patents:

This product may incorporate any of the following Look and Feel Instruments (including APIs):

Licensors are prohibited from restricting the use of patents submitted under this license further than the restrictions defined under the terms and conditions of the license itself. While licensors are prohibited from requiring extra documentation, they are not prohibited from requesting it. If a licensee wishes to include the requested succinct, ASCII documentation, they can do so in the "patent: description" format.

Organizations claiming and licensing their PLIPs may specify the name and descriptions to be used in listing the PLIPs. Both the name and descriptions must be writable in ASCII, and be succinct.

Future versions of this license may change the documentation requirements for PLIPs.

As it is in the best interest of all concerned that patents submitted to the pools are well-documented and their use is well-known and well-understood, with any suggested extra documentation on the patents easily found, it is requested not only that copies of the certification statement for any Options a licenser may invoke be sent to Patents in the Public Interest, Inc., but that any extra requests for documentation by users of the patents and PLIPs be sent as well. This is not a guarantee that these requests will be honored or further distributed.

Documenting that a patent or PLIP is incorporated into a product as being applicable, shall not be taken to imply that the licensee considers the applicable patent or PLIP considers the patent to be valid or legally enforcable in any way.

Works incorporated versus works aggregated

Even when incorporating other products into the work, the distribution, making, selling and use of the work as a whole must still meet the terms and conditions of this license. That is, for an organization to make, use, or sell the work, all of the patents and PLIPs incorporated into the work must, as a set, be usable under the terms and conditions of one or more of the Open Patent Pools defined under this license.

This means that a work cannot be distributed under this license if it incorporates a patent or PLIP that could not be distributed under this license under the same terms and conditions as the rest of this work.

For instance, if a work could be distributed under the terms and conditions of Open Patent Pool 3, and then the work was modified to incorporate a product containing a patent not licensed under this license, then the work in question, this work as a whole, cannot be made, distributed, sold, or used under the terms and conditions of this license.

Or, if a work could be distributed under the terms and conditions of Open Patent Pool 3, and then the work was modified to incorporate a product containing a patent only available from Open Patent Pool 1, then the work in question, this work as a whole, cannot be made, distributed, sold, or used under the terms and conditions of Open Patent Pool 3. (Although it is possible, depending on the circumstances, that it could be distributed under the terms and conditions of Open Patent Pool 1.)

The reverse is also true: A component whose patents are only licensed under this license cannot be incorporated into a product that itself could not be made, used, or sold under the terms and conditions of this license.

The reasons for this limitation are quite simple:

1. If you do not have a right to do something yourself, that means that you also cannot give others the right to do the same thing. So if you cannot use a patent under the terms and conditions of this license, it is not possible for you to allow yourself or others to use the patent by somehow incorporating it into a some other product, even if you could otherwise make, use, distribute, and sell that other product.

2. The limitation is utterly necessary to this license. Without it, this license would be entirely meaningless, as anyone would be able to trivially bypass the intent of this license by incorporating patents covered by the license with those not covered by the license in the same device, leaving an entirely unbalanced situation where those who so generously donated their licenses to the Open Patent pools would not be able to freely use the non-covered patents, while the converse would be untrue.

One practical result of this is that it is quite possible, even likely, that a particular product available for retail sale, in which the applicable patents and PLIPs are licensed under this license, cannot be combined with another product available for retail sale, because the combination of the two products patents and PLIPs cannot as a set be made, used, distributed, or sold under the terms and conditions of any of the Open Patent Pools of this license.

The limitation leads to an interesting dilemma. Someone might build a work out of parts for which he may individually have the right to make, use, distribute, or sell, but may yet be unable to make, use, distribute, or sell the work as a whole. The choices this "consolidator" has in this situation are:

1. To not make, use, distribute, or sell this work.

2. To redesign the work such that the relevant licenses no longer conflict.

3. To license the needed rights such that the licenses are compatible.

4. To pay the holder of the rights to license the relevant patents and PLIPs under this license such that they are available from the Open Patent Pools the consolidator requires. (Although this may allow the consolidator to make, use, distribute, or sell the work as far as the terms of this license are concerned, there may be additional licensing considerations outside the scope of this license. For instance, a license to incorporate copyrighted software in the work may be required.)

However, an aggregate collection of works need not all similarly comply to this license do be made, used, distributed, or sold, as long as each work in the aggregate could otherwise be made, used, distributed, or sold, and the collection genuinely can be considered to be an aggregate work.

This leads to the question as to whether a set of components, taken as a whole, create a work as a whole, or an aggregate work.

Software components

For software components, the determination of whether a component work is defined as part of the work-as-a-whole will be made by determining if it would be judged a part of the work as a whole under the GNU GPL.

Non-Software components

For non-software components, the GPL-based determination will also apply, as much as is practicable, with the following additional requirements:
1. To be considered an "aggregate component", the component must also be expected to be user-replaceable, both under a "reasonable person" definition as well as in all all product claims and documentation for the device. (For instance, both the batteries and the light bulb in a common flashlight would be considered a separate work.)

2. Any claim by an organization making, distributing, or selling the work that the product warranty of the work (even after the warranty would otherwise have expired) would be invalidated if this hardware component were replaced by the end user, would cause this component to be considered a part of the work as a whole for the purposes of this license for this organization and those down the supply chain, when the work is made, used, distributed, or sold by this organization or any organization up the supply chain. The component may yet be considered an aggregate component by other organizations.

   (For instance, if a company makes a work and claims that this component is not user-replaceable, the component is part of the work as a whole no matter who sells it. However, if only one distributor makes that claim, then this clause will only have the effect of making this work sold through this one distributor being considered a work as a whole, assuming the work would not have been considered part of the work as a whole for other reasons.)

3. For a hardware component to be considered an aggregate work, the hardware component must be one that both would be available and would be expected to be available for retail purchase by an end-user.

The goal here is to prevent the possibility of a patent not available for use from a particular Open Patent Pool being "smuggled into" another device in a way so as to bypass the intent of this license by allowing the work as a whole to be distributed under that Open Patent Pool. However, system integrators should be able to put together aggregate systems if end-users could do the same under the terms and conditions of this license.

For instance, A battery powering an Open Patent radio should be considered an aggregate work, unless the battery wouldn't be expected to be regularly changed by the user over the life of the radio. Plugging a PCI card into a motherboard should be considered creating an aggregate work if it doesn't void any warranties. However, a d/a converter added into a circuit board should be considered part of the work as a whole.)

5. Additional Costs

This license does not impose any additional cost on the owner of a patent in order to place a patent or set of patents into the OPL Patent Pools using any of the available Options, other than the requirement to meet the terms and conditions of this license.

There is no cost imposed on using any patents from any Open Patent Pool created under this license, other than the requirement to meet the terms and conditions of this license.

Although there is technically no payment required to use this license, if parts of the license come under legal attack, or for other reasons interested parties find it beneficial to pool resources to strengthen the legal position of this license, they are not prevented from doing so. However, such payment will not gain payers any advantages over non-payers under the terms and conditions of this license. (Cooperation is assumed to be advantageous, but it is not enforced.)

Additionally, there is no restriction imposed by this license on one party paying another to license patents under any option of this agreement.

7. Interpretation of this agreement

Interpretations in case of ambiguity or contradictions

Any ambiguity or contradiction in this agreement shall be interpreted in the way most in accordance with the general spirit of the license. Any remaining ambiguity or contradiction shall then be interpreted in accordance with the principle that each party submitting intellectual property benefits anyone using the property in Open Source code, as well as benefiting anyone submitting their contributions in a manner as generous and more generous than themselves.

License still valid even when superfluous

This agreement remains in effect even if parts of it temporarily or permanently become superfluous. For instance, if software patents are ruled invalid in one country, the agreement still holds there and elsewhere.

Example: If, for instance, software patents happened to be ruled invalid for a period of 5 years in this one country, after which they were again ruled valid, for that period of 5 years in which no one needed to invoke any part of this agreement in order to be able to make, use, or sell software containing a temporarily-defunct software patent in that country, the agreement could still be used in other countries, and could become important again in this example country if software patents were again held to be valid at the end of that 5 years.

Joint and Sever-ability

If any portion of this section is held invalid or unenforceable under any particular circumstance, the balance of the section is intended to apply and the section as a whole is intended to apply in other circumstances.

8. Future Changes

Patents in the Public Interest may revise the Open Patent License from time to time. Newer versions of the license thus created will be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to address new problems or concerns. Completed new revisions will superceede previous revisions, and the newer revisions will be binding on all parties. ***Need good preamble to make "similar" well-defined.***

Each version is given a distinguishing three-part version number, such as 1.2.5. Revisions while in progress will be given odd middle numbers. These works-in-progress shall not be binding in any way. Completed revisions will be given even numbers, and they then become binding.

(Note: The three part version scheme was not chosen because frequent revisions are expected--quite the contrary, revisions are expected to occur very rarely. Rather this numbering scheme was chosen both because of its practical advantages it affords in allowing discussion and examination of changes, while (in this case) minimizing confusion of official, completed revisions with proposals and works-in-progress.)

In addition, PPI may edit the license in the following ways:

1. Need something here so company can't cheat with subsidiaries/group-owned public companies.

2. The license along with its pools and options may be renamed and renumbered.

3. The licensed may be modified for internationalization purposes as long as the modification doesn't effectively change the requirements for current licensors or licensees. (This license is assumed to be valid everwhere. But if, for instance, it is found to be not valid in one country merely because the certification statement is missing key wording, the license will be updated to require the missing wording, and it the previous statements will be retroactively assumed to have contained the missing wording. The justification for the retroactive change is that the licensors had intended to license their patent without that geographic restriction, so the removal of that restriction doesn't change their intentions.)

4. Patent pools are well-understood legally. Trade-dress and user-interface pools are not quite as common. Future versions of this license will likely detail more specifically of how trade dress, user interface copyrights, and other PLIPs must be licensed under the Open Patent License.

5. It may be the case that this license is not flexable enough in its current form to handle special cases of some industries. The license may be modified to add more Options, Levels, and Pools to accommodate special cases. The addition of these special cases will not reduce the patents available in any of the existing pools. However, because these additions will have their own terms and conditions, time limits, and testing periods, the additions to the existing pools from these special cases may not be permanent. During the time that any newly-added special-case additions to existing pools are still in a temporary state, the license will have wording to that effect.