I trust the FSF will answer you soon! I'll write something just so you have a quick reply, but I am not a lawyer and I'm not sure I am correct.
I am not a lawyer, but I believe the answer is (b), you do not need to have any patents registered or any plans to. The purpose of item 11 seems to me to protect people who use your GPLv3'd module from any claims you might make of patent infringement in the future (which presumably you won't). On Tue, Jul 24, 2012 at 6:42 AM, Jamalulkhair Bin Khairedin < [email protected]> wrote: > Dear Libreplanet Members, > > I have sent enquiries to the Free Software Foundation, Inc > ([email protected] > & [email protected]) but did not get any reply. So, I have to ask here instead. > What we need is a clarification regarding GPLv3. > > We in the process releasing a software module as an open source > software. The product is meant to be used by health-care providers > (eg:hospitals) and we are interested to make it open and free for everybody > to use it. > > We are planning to use GPL v3 for the product. However there is an area > that > need to be clarified specifically referring to GPL item 11 which says > “Each contributor grants you a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free > patent license under the contributor's essential patent claims, to make, > use, sell, offer for sale, import and otherwise run, modify and propagate > the contents of its contributor version.”. > > We would like to clarify whether the above statement means that :- > > a) We need to have a patent registered for our module before using the > GPLv3 license; or > b) We can use GPLv3 without having any patent registered nor any plan to > register for the patent > > Your kind clarification and explanation are very much appreciated. > > Thank you. > > http://www.mampu.gov.my > http://www.moh.gov.my > http://www.oscc.org.my > > Regards > -- > > Jamalulkhair Khairedin > Malaysian Public Sector Open Source Competency Centre (OSCC) > 2nd Floor, MKN-Embassy Techzone Building > Block B, No. 3200 > Jalan Teknokrat 2 > 63000 Cyberjaya > Selangor, Malaysia > > > > -- > This message has been scanned for viruses and > dangerous content by MailScanner, and is > believed to be clean. > > >
