On Mar 29, 2005, at 4:42 PM, Lawrence Rosen wrote:
Geir Magnusson wrote:<snip>The Apache License says in section 3 "Grant of Patent License" :I read this to mean that if I make a derivative work, I have no reason to believe that the patent license granted by the contributor to the original work applies to me and my derivative work.
I read it the same way. Not only that, but I read the patent grants in all
other open source licenses the same way. A copyright license to create
derivative works doesn't mean you get a patent license for whatever
derivative works strike your fancy.
If you create a derivative work, you must make your own decisions about
whether additional patent licenses will be needed beyond those that came
with the original work.
I thought about this some more and it's not clear to me.
By your phrasing of "additional patent licenses will be needed beyond those that came with the original work" seems to imply that I can depend on the patent license that came with the original work, but I may need others. From the first paragraph of your response, I thought I couldn't even depend on the patent license that came with the original work...
geir
Broad patent grants like the recent ones from IBM, Sun and CA may help you
make that analysis, but even they are no guarantee.
/Larry Rosen
-----Original Message----- From: Geir Magnusson Jr. [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, March 29, 2005 12:20 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Apache License : grant of patent license and derivative works
We have been having a discussion elsewhere on patents and open source, and the following is not clear to me. The Apache License says in section 3 "Grant of Patent License" :
Subject to the terms and conditions of this License, each Contributor hereby grants to You a ... patent license to make, have made, use, offer to sell, sell, import, and otherwise transfer the Work, where such license applies only to those patent claims licensable by such Contributor that are necessarily infringed by their Contribution(s) alone or by combination of their Contribution(s) with the Work to which such Contribution(s) was submitted.
I read this to mean that if I make a derivative work, I have no reason to believe that the patent license granted by the contributor to the original work applies to me and my derivative work.
In other words, my derivative work is potentially encumbered by the patent for which a license was granted to the original work.
geir
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