Another view on the issue follows.

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Jon Phillips jon@rejon.org Date: Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 4:59 PM Subject: Re: [kanzure@gmail.com: [Open Manufacturing] Fwd: Non-assertion pledges... for (patented) open source hardware?] To: "Hard- and Software Development, Kernel, Distribution, Roadmap" developer@lists.qi-hardware.com

That list may very well be a blackhole, but the people on the other end at CC are my friends. I'm working on this part of the puzzle pretty actively right now, esp. after getting a core dump from many working in the space at Opening Hardware at Eyebeam last week:

http://scienceblogs.com/commonknowledge/2010/03/open_hardware.php

Basically, for our vices, there are two parts I believe we need for whatever we want to call OPEN/PUBLIC patents. I'm preferring the PUBLIC PATENTS concept right now, basically to try and make easier/more clear patents so that anyone can use them and not get sued, or rather, to try to make sure that anyone can build upon hardware and software innovation without the fear of litigation.

So, what I think we need is:

1.) a place where patents of all forms can be publicly disclosed loudly and with a disclaimer for those submitting patentable ideas which have, at least in the USA, a 1 year grace period on being registered, so that the public can be assured that in that 1 year grace period, the patentable idea will not be submitted as a patent, or if it is, it is released under the/a public patent license. After that 1 year, the patentable idea (that is not patented), is available for anyone to use if not patented...which leads to next point...

2.) A Public Patent License which basically allows for any patent to be used safely by the public. This would be useful for old patent portfolios and if one spends the money to patent something and then to release under a public patent license.

Right now, what I can source is that best path for COPYLEFT hardware projects (and those feigning with the weak terms OPEN HARDWARE, FREE HARDWARE, OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE and OPEN SOFTWARE), is to publish loudly on public channels when new innovation happens (details on this to be decided of course). Qi-Hardware wiki is a great community resource for this, as well as your blog, or other places. Publishing loudly publicly provides prior art for this type of 1 year grace period to occur.

I'm working on a new public project with some of the actors in the space if anyone here is interested...My goal is to create such a site for all sorts of freeing of patents, and also to insure Science Commons/CC create a very functional and useful public patent license that people can use. Let's call that the PPL (Public Patent License)...or as I'm saying: patents for (the) PPL (people).

I must admit, I'm not precise on my terms around patents and my above knowledge is forming mostly around patents in the USA. But, to get patents right internationally, thats even more fun. For now, my concern is really about getting a clear path on a solution for those worried about patents or working in our FLOSS and COPYLEFT HARDWARE communities.

Please rip my statements to shreds and/or provide some counterpoints...and, when this is annoying, we can post up more to the cc-patents list.

jon

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On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 7:41 PM, cristian paul peñaranda rojas paul@kristianpaul.org wrote:

----- Forwarded message from Bryan Bishop kanzure@gmail.com -----

Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2010 14:17:12 -0500 From: Bryan Bishop kanzure@gmail.com To: GOSH! - Grounding Open Source Hardware gosh@piksel.no,        Open Manufacturing openmanufacturing@googlegroups.com,        diybio diybio@googlegroups.com, kanzure@gmail.com Subject: [Open Manufacturing] Fwd: Non-assertion pledges... for (patented)        open source hardware?

Hey all,

I sent this email to the cc-patents mailing list. Supposedly that's where the CC groupies were to be gathering, but I haven't seen a response yet, and it seems like it might be a black hole (I hope not!)

http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/cc-patents

Anyway, I am forwarding this email so that others (on the GOSH!, diybio and open manufacturing lists) can comment and provide whatever inputs they can.

Thanks!

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Bryan Bishop kanzure@gmail.com Date: Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 5:31 PM Subject: Non-assertion pledges... for (patented) open source hardware? To: cc-patents@lists.ibiblio.org, Bryan Bishop kanzure@gmail.com

Hey all,

I have found my way here from this page:

http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Patent_Tools_Public_Discussion

I was wondering about the non-profit-research-only non-assertion pledge tool mentioned on the page. I became aware of the patent tools discussion in light of the open source hardware community. Ayah Bdeir dropped a nice link for us to follow and lead us here. In particular, one idea that I have been kicking around (fed to me in part by Joe Rayhawk) for the hardware community is a non-assertion pledge for patent owners who wish to promote open source hardware. In this scenario, OSI, FSF, EFF, TAPR, CC, and DFSG principles would be written into a set of principles that would guide whether or not something is considered to be "open source" (in the hardware community sense).

I am not sure how specific this would have to be or how impractical it presently sounds. The GNU General Public License v3 is very specific about redistribution, modification, etc., and the rights granted to the end-user. Would something equally verbose be needed at the center of this patent pledge scenario?

...

From the mile-high view, it seems that the non-profit-research-only

specification is more stringent than the open source hardware community would prefer as a legal vehicle. Already we see businesses like Makerbot Industries licensing their content under CC-BY 3.0 and in some cases GPL, BSD, etc., deeper in the internal RepRap community. In this instance, there are no patents involved. But it would be easy to imagine a scenario where patents were involved from the onset. The proliferation of open source hardware in the commercial markets is really interesting, and IMHO worth investigating whether or not it would be possible. Yes, I understand that this is *not* the intent of the research non-assertion pledge currently on the CC wiki.

In light of these ideas, and the recent "Opening Hardware" workshop in NYC, I was wondering if anyone has comments, thoughts and advice to share? Thank you! I also have many links to dump if anyone is interested in the topology of these communities at the moment, and what various projects are using for licenses, etc.

• Bryan

http://heybryan.org/ 1 512 203 0507

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