PatentAssist.ai’s Post

Very valuable information and compilation. It may also interesting to mention the following situation: Located in copyright law, open source licenses apply to the software as such. Patents are different, it is usually the technical idea and application that is patented. What I would be interested in: How far does granting the right to use by an open source license extend? In many cases, the patent claim covers the software only as part of the whole, but also further technical steps (receiving sensor data, controlling and operating a machine, further software use). To what extent does this render the patent still unenforceable through the license?

OSS licenses and patents complement each other well, with conditions varying based on your business model. Under GPL V3, for example, the patent license covers the program itself. Thus, if a competitor replicates the patented function without needing a copyright license , it infringes on the patent. This allows you to have an open-source version of your program to attract contributors while using the patent to prevent innovation ecosystem alternatives. In short, this couple is great for any open core business model, and more generally any model based at leat partially based on innovation network (such as community development, but not limited to). Great to run it. Great to pivot it. R&D agility has a cost (in your ecosystem, you may have competitors) but that's another debat :)

Kurt Sutter Thank you for referring to my research on patents & FOSS. For my wider PhD study on this subject, please see here https://helda.helsinki.fi/server/api/core/bitstreams/c28a4c43-daee-4abc-bc50-d4c7b4cecdc2/content

one more issue, perhaps - if you are an exclusive licensee of a patent that also covers OSS rights granted by the patent owner, that means you are not an exclusive licensee. this may have an impact on your ability to sue.

Good discussion, I promise that sometimes I will sitt down and actually write my thoughts on this topic. But in general, both open source (well any form of open innovation really) and patents are tools in the IP toolbox. If a company is to succeed it will need to use and master all the tools in that toolbox.

Very useful! The pie chart alone is worth publishing, IMO. Let me reproduce it here.

Patents are "open source", they aren't "FOSS" or axiomatically adoptable but anything within a patent is open to inspection. :)

Very useful intro to a complex topic!

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Excellent Kurt Sutter. Very useful thanks