http://www.actonline.org/documents/ACT-GPLv3-Legal-Risks.pdf (GPLv3: The Legal Risks of Overreaching for Third Party Patent Rights)
<quote> At some point, efforts to block patent licenses that are legally entered into and fully consistent with contract law, as well as the intellectual property laws enacted by Congress, begin to expose those developing and agreeing to GPLv3 to potential defenses and counterclaims, including but not limited to the following. - First, efforts by non-parties to force or induce a party to abrogate a validly entered into contract or forego entering into a prospective contract can give rise to a cause of action for tortious interference. - Second, concerted agreements among competing providers of Linux software and associated services to refuse to enter into license agreements with a patent holder, or to refuse to supply Linux software as punishment for any company that does so, can give rise to antitrust liability under a group boycott theory. - Third, efforts to use copyrights in order to control subject matter such as patent rights that are outside the scope of statutory copyrights can give rise to claims for copyright misuse that would block all enforcement of such copyrights until the misuse is purged. The basis for exposure under each of these theories is set forth briefly in the following sections. What is evident from the analysis of each of these three theories is the effort by the FSF to set itself above the general tort, antitrust, and intellectual property laws to attack the patent system. They dont have the power to legislate, however; that is left to national legal systems that are subject to relevant international norms. Not having the power to legislate, the FSF sets out to undermine those laws they deem inconvenient to their purposes rather than working through the system to effect the change they desire. </quote> See also http://www.actonline.org/documents/GPLv3-License-or-Contract.pdf (GPLv3 is a Contract and Why it Matters) I just can't wait for next round of amusing bullshiting from Eben and his underlings. Kudos to ACT. regards, alexander. _______________________________________________ gnu-misc-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss
