[Patents] patent pools enforcing per-copy-licensing mode of software development

[PILCH Hartmut phm@a2e.de]

> Hartmut writes:
> >By publishing his [patented] software, he will largely render his 
> >patent forceless.
> 
> That is nonsense patent law.  Once you file your patent, you can 
> publish your software anywhere you want, and not suffer any loss
> of patent rights.  It is a false statement of law below any normal
> intellectual standard.

Once you publish the patented process as free software, you are allowing
everybody to use it, thus making it nearly impossible to make any money
from your patent.  The only possibility left to you is then to make your
free software GPL and charge license fees on proprietary competitors. But
the proprietary competitors can solve their problem by just including a
reference to your free module.  Moreover, they will hardly be able to
compete, if there is good free software doing the same.

This is not a statement of law at all.

However I might add, as a (largely redundant) statement of law, that some
countries have regulations that disallow you to enforce a patent if you
have not enforced it for many years.  E.g. before German courts British
Telecom could get in trouble for allowing hyperlinks without warning and
then suddenly suing.  Likewise, by making a procedure usable in the
context of free software, you could under certain circumstances be viewed
by a court as having renounced your right to enforce your patent.

-phm