On Wed, 23 Feb 2000, dmolnar wrote:
>
>
> On Thu, 24 Feb 2000, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote:
>
> > A new law that requires that any implementation instance of something that
> > is covered in full or in part by a GPL Patent requires FULL disclosure of
> > all Intellectual Property used in the implementation. Design documents,
> > other patents, other processes, etc. Sufficient such that another person,
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> Do you mean "we document that some other patent was used in implementing
> this source code, which itself implements something covered by a GPL
> patent, but don't do anything about licensing this other patent" ?
no.
> or do you mean "we must grant you a license to this other patent we
> used to implement something covered by a GPL patent" ? What if the
> person implementing the GPL patent doesn't have the ability to license
> that patent?
then in a similar, analogous way to GPL libraries and proprietary source
code, if you can't get the ability to license or use that patent, you
can't use that patent to produce your product.
obviously, if you can buy a component (equivalent to a library) and use it
in a product, you shouldn't have to research and fully disclose all
patents on the individual component.
requires a lot of thinking through, doesn't it? :)
>
> > organisation, corporation etc. can, if they so desire, implement it
> > themselves.
>
> If I am the holder of a patent, can I make this "full disclosure" a
> necessary condition for licensing the patent?
more that... anyone can implicitly license the patent (i.e you have
_already_ given permission) if they are prepared to make a "full
disclosure" of all intellectual property used in an implementation of a
product atht uses the patent.
other uses - private, non-full-disclosure licenses - would still need to
be explicitly granted by the patent holder.
