Re: Patent clauses in licenses

[Glenn Maynard <glenn@zewt.org>]

On Sun, Sep 19, 2004 at 05:53:42PM +0200, Thomas Hood wrote:
> At one extreme it would be unreasonable to expect L to give up her legal
> right, e.g., to sue A for damages caused by A's automobile running into
> L's house.
> 
> At the other extreme it would be reasonable to expect L to give up her
> legal right to sue A for damages caused by L's use of program P.  (I
> assume here that offering programs on an as-is basis is reasonable.)
> 
> I don't see how L's right to sue A for patent infringement can possibly
> resemble the second case more than the first, so I am inclined to regard
> the demand that L give up such rights as unreasonable ... until someone
> can give me some suitable reasoning, of course.

Suing for software patent infringement does not resemble either of these
cases at all; it more closely resembles "the legal right to swamp competing
companies with frivelous lawsuits".

I don't believe that enforcing software patents is a legitimate "legal
right" that needs to be protected.

(I do believe that potential abuses need to be explored carefully, of course.)

-- 
Glenn Maynard