[OpenID] OpenID and patents [was: OpenID 2.0 is final]

[Gabe Wachob]

The only mechanism in place right now is the right of the current signers to
retract their patent non-assertion promise if a party initiates patent
action against a 3rd party. Not all signers of the IPR contributor's
agreement need agree up front to terminate, but some have already. 

This is, however, only effective if the party initiating patent litigation
is an implementer themselves, of course. A party who is *not* an implementer
who make a patent infringement claim is not threatened by the termination of
any party's non-assertion statement (with respect to OpenID). 

As I think you are probably getting at, there is a limit to protective
effect an IPR policy and process can have against non-implementer,
non-contributor 3rd parties. The issue is that companies that, for example,
focus their entire business on patent litigation, and don't actually
practice any of their patents, have *zero* exposure for patent infringement
and are essentially unreachable by any sort of patent claims in response. 

This is an active area of discussion in the broader technology community and
it won't be solved here. Patent pools are interesting here, but again have
limited effectiveness against companies who are not actually implementing
products or services in the market. 

Patent reform is probably the only solution - that's certainly something
OpenID is not going to be taking the lead on... 

	-Gabe

> -----Original Message-----
> From: general-bounces at openid.net [mailto:general-bounces at openid.net] On
> Behalf Of Eric Norman
> Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2007 11:15 PM
> To: OpenID List
> Subject: [OpenID] OpenID and patents [was: OpenID 2.0 is final]
> 
> 
> On Dec 7, 2007, at 12:05 AM, Johannes Ernst wrote:
> 
> > Actually, I think it is worse ;-) I have yet to see a lawyer who would
> > say "this piece of code does not violate any IP" because it's
> > basically impossible given the number of patents there is, the much
> > larger number of patent interpretations that there are and might be,
> > and the number of jurisdictions in which those might have been filed
> > by parties nobody has ever heard of.
> >
> > The best defense here is in numbers. Which means:
> >
> > **
> > If you have not signed a non-assert but can easily do so, PLEASE DO
> > and send it to the OpenID Foundation.
> > The more billions you have on your balance sheet, the better ;-)
> > **
> > Further say that you will do all sorts of nasty things to those people
> > who are playing patent troll on published OpenID specifications.
> >
> > That's the real deterrent.
> 
> Someone's got to ask.  What weapons does the OpenID Foundation
> have that can be used to inflict all those sorts of nasty things
> should the need arise?
> 
> The patent troll will be waving an issued patent in front of the
> judge.  What do you have to wave back?
> 
> I'm definitely not defending the patent system.  I know it's
> severely broken as far as software is concerned.  But I'm not
> the one that needs to be convinced.
> 
> Peter Williams has a point about today's "intellectual property"
> rathole, you know.
> 
> Eric Norman
> 
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