[OH Updates] Schematics and copyright

[David Carrier]

As an open source product developer, we don't care about having patents on our own designs.  We just don't want to get sued by someone else.  Considering the straightforwardness of our designs, any patent lawsuits are likely to be from generic patents that are popular among patent trolls.  If there was some sort of open patent registry that we could place all our patents under, and allow anyone and everyone to use these patents, as long as the never sue us for infringing any of their patents, then we would be motivated to patent innovations we make.

I am concerned that current open source licenses allow a company to release a product's design files under an open source license, but retain the rights to the design itself.  It is my opinion that it is unethical to do so, although it is legal.  Oracle is doing exactly this with Java: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/16/us-oracle-google-lawsuit-idUSTRE75F6DI20110616

— David Carrier
Parallax Inc.


-----Original Message-----
From: Bruce Perens [mailto:bruce at perens.com]
Sent: Tue 9/20/2011 4:41 PM
To: updates at lists.openhardwaresummit.org
Subject: Re: [OH Updates] Schematics and copyright
 
On 09/20/2011 04:09 PM, Dave Jones wrote:
> Only if you can afford to defend a patent.
I am not advocating that Open Source folks get patents, of course.

I also believe there are many severe problems with the system, one of 
which is, as you say, that it is biased toward the deep-pockets plaintiff.

     Bruce
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