On 08/22/2010 02:28 PM, Narendra Sisodiya wrote: > > Am I correct If I say -- "Idea cannot be patented but once they are > published they can be used as prior art for defensing purpose ?"
That is confusing. When people talk about "defensive patents", they are refer to the policy of organizations that only use patents as for defence (ie) they don't sue first for any patent violation. In the case of Red Hat, the policy is made part of a public promise to assure free and open source software developers a certain level of trust in not acting in bad faith. I would note however that a patent license is preferably to a promise and there are people within and outside Red Hat pushing for that. Although other patents can be shown to be prior art, it is a somewhat of a dicey strategy unless the other patents have already expired because if you say patent bar is prior art to patent foo, it will invalidate patent foo but the patent holder of patent bar can sue you for a violation. Rahul _______________________________________________ ILUGC Mailing List: http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/mailman/listinfo/ilugc
