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:
- 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:
- Those patents are currently judged by a court of law
to be infringed upon by this software or device, or
- 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.)
Option |
Covers IP submitted |
Into Pools |
Specifics |
1 |
Specific Patents and PLIPS, for Open Source use only |
1------ | |
2 |
Specific Patents and PLIPS |
123456- | |
3 |
Specific Patents and all PLIPS. |
1-2345- | |
4 |
All software patents and all PLIPs. |
1--456- | All Software patents |
1-3456- | All PLIPS |
5 |
All software patents, specific non-software
patents, remaining non-software-patents under
time-release, and all PLIPs. |
1--456- | All Software Patents |
1-3456- | All PLIPS |
1---56- | Listed Patents |
1---56- | All Patents, but time-released |
6 |
All Patents and all Plips. |
1----6- | |
7 |
Specific Patents and Plips, sharing not required. |
1234567 | Specified Patents and PLIPS, but with
no sharing requirement on use. |
- 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,
- 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;
-
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;
- 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
- 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:
-
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.
-
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:
-
To not make, use, distribute, or sell this work.
-
To redesign the work such that the relevant licenses
no longer conflict.
-
To license the needed rights such that the licenses
are compatible.
-
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:
-
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.)
-
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.)
-
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:
-
Need something here so company can't cheat with
subsidiaries/group-owned public companies.
-
The license along with its pools and options may be
renamed and renumbered.
-
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.)
-
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.
-
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.
Last Modified on
February 10 2000 04:32:49 UTC
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