From phm@a2e.de Sun, 16 Jul 2000 10:22:42 +0200 (CEST)
Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2000 10:22:42 +0200 (CEST)
From: PILCH Hartmut phm@a2e.de
Subject: [Patents] Re: gouvernement 'buy up' patents or copyright

> > OPL: may be used without permission of the patent owner only in copyleft
> > (GPL) software.  The "inventor" can otherwise continue to exploit his
> > patent and can put it into various pools.  Many variants possible,
> > including that labeled as "GPPL" in
> > http://www.freepatents.org/shanghai/shanghai.pdf.
> > 
> > GPPL:
> > true patentleft : public intellectual property that may *never* (subject
> > to no negotation) be used in any system that uses any technology which
> > cannot be freely reimplemented (i.e. used at least under GPL terms).
> 
> I don't understand the difference you are describing.  Are you saying
> that the proposed "GPPL" license should restrict the patent owner from
> incorporating his patent outside the terms of the proposed GPPL
> license?

Yes.  A GPPL'ed technology may only be used in systems in which all other
technologies are freely implementable.  This may motivate owners of
proprietary patents to put them under an OPL.
 
> Pure lawyer companies can still attempt to use their patents as
> weapons to stifle invention.  Presumably as the patent pools grow,
> implementation of the lawyers' patented methods will noticeably start
> to require more and more licenses from OPL'd patents, (as the lawyers'
> patents become the more noticeable roadblocks to progress, those
> holding patents on their incorporated techniques will likely find more
> reason to bring up the issue.)  I would hope the OPL helps to make
> destructive patent-wielding less of a money-making proposition.

A GPPL'ed patent would work in the same direction, but more directly and
forcefully.  Under the current system of licene fees a GPPL would work
only if there is a public-interest organisation that acquires patents,
puts them under GPPL and pays the annual fees.
 
> > In a better patent system, the OPL/GPPL might entitle their owner to pay
> > less patent fees.  In Germany patent fees are already now lowered if a
> > patent is licensed non-exclusively for a low fee.
> > 
> > Actually I am drafting a petition letter on the Community Patent that
> > calls for a radical patent reform, in which patent fees are abolished
> > altogether, because they corrupt the patent offices, making them dependent
> > on granting more patents:
> 
> I would not agree in principle with such a proposal, but would agree
> with something only slightly different.  (BTW, I think that the issue
> of how patent offices are funded is completely separate from the issue
> of whether any type of patent should be valid.)

That is, you would agree that public intellectual property should be given
special status in the patent system.

The issue of how to provide patent offices with incentives against patent
inflation is indeed a separate matter which we could put into a separate
thread.

-phm






