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

[Sakimura Nat]

I agree with Gabe. There is almost nothing that you can do against a patent troll.
Actually, for a patent troll, it is not even important if the party is actually infringing.
For a shallow pocket troll, it is often suffice to make the other party feel vaguely
of the legal cost so that they can settle out of the court with an amount that will be
less than the legal cost. This strategy is possible because they can go bankrupt
if they lose in the court, while the party with a real business cannot.

=nat

________________________________________
差出人: general-bounces at openid.net [general-bounces at openid.net] は Gabe Wachob [gabe.wachob at amsoft.net] の代理
送信日時: 2007年12月7日 16:58
宛先: 'Eric Norman'; 'OpenID List'
件名: Re: [OpenID] OpenID and patents [was: OpenID 2.0 is final]

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