From - Thu Apr 17 14:32:26 2003 X-Mozilla-Status: 0011 X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: carl@andisplanet.com Received: from wiley (node-402421a9.mdw.onnet.us.uu.net [64.36.33.169]) by andisplanet.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id CEA7A910E8 for ; Sat, 22 Mar 2003 22:09:54 -0800 (PST) Received: from geraldgleason.com (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by wiley (8.11.6/8.11.6) with ESMTP id h2N4iUv04061; Sat, 22 Mar 2003 22:44:30 -0600 Message-ID: <3E7D3BAD.7040806@geraldgleason.com> Date: Sat, 22 Mar 2003 22:44:29 -0600 From: Gerry Gleason User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:0.9.9) Gecko/20020408 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: georgedafermos@discover.org Cc: discuss@ggpl.org Subject: Re: Royalty-Free Patent Policy (W3C) References: <20030323023513.12473.qmail@inbox.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit George Dafermos wrote: >>One thing to consider is whether the Organis design ideas can be >>patented as unique business processes and >>organizational structures. Obviously this has to be handled very >> >>carefully to avoid major strategic mistakes, but >>it could be the way to initiate the strategic moves as discussed above. >> > >Its an idea that has been in the background..... of my mind ... > patenting business processes and organizational structures is pushing >the domain of patents and supports it..... on the other hand is may >allow investment in the idea. and by investment I mean not just VC, but >more important code and other investments of seting up NPO's and daily >operations. > > >In my opinion, patenting the very organic structures and processes that make Organis what it is will be a strategic mistake which we may not be able to undo later on. Not only will it stiffle creativity in the area but it may also breed bitterness among enthusiasts. To a certain extent, I'm sure that 'embracing patents' in the the same way that GPL embraces copyright is a smart move, however, such a strategy may have unintended consequences as we can all imagine. > >I've started writing an email regarding the Osaka proposal and I hope I'm not too late to provide some feedback. > >George > I think you are right about the nature of the risk. In fact, when I suggested it, I had a vague thought about how this could be used to establish a clear and unbreakable connection to the GGPL licenses. On second thought, I'm sure I wouldn't be happy if the FSF had established a unique legal position for themselves with respect to the GPL, so I am inclined to agree with your assessment of this concept. At some level, there could be a need to defensively patent a lot of stuff including this, but I guess it would surprise me if anyone else wanted to patent something like Organis. The fact that it has been written about should establish it as prior art, but at least the USPTO doesn't seem to be capable of rejecting a patent even when the prior art is obvious to anyone. That's really the motivation for 'embracing patents', because patents often seem to be the only recognized prior art, making them necessary if only defensively. It is also worth noting that the GGPL terms wouldn't restrict a patent holder from licensing the patent under other terms while also making it available for GGPL project inclusion under no-cost terms. This has been discussed as a valid model for GPL release as well. In this context, the restrictions of GPL and GGPL can be seen as an advantage because the IP owner isn't giving away an essentially unrestricted license, and thus the IP can retain a sale value to people who want to create a derivative work under other licensing terms including fully commercial terms. This is more what I was referring to as having a connection with the normal patent process. I don't think RMS really anticipated that a large body of GPLed code would develop with a large number of independent authors retaining primary rights to their work while sharing under GPL terms. The fact is that the universe of GPLed code is far larger than what a single organization (FSF) could produce, and the GPL (and Free/Open Source generally) is far stronger for it. Gerry