On Mon, Oct 3, 2011 at 3:23 PM, Mike Hord mike.hord@gmail.com wrote:

A patent is really (AIUI) just a license to sue an infringing party. A patent won't be granted if prior art on the matter exists; OSHW is, by it's very nature, prior art. That means Mega-corp, LLC, can't file a patent on a design released by SparkFun and then sue SparkFun, since SparkFun's release of the design into the OSHW community is pretty solid prior art.

Not precisely. It's my understanding that the litigation can still occur even in situations of prior art. There's also a process to invalidate a patent by submitting prior art (I think), but then again some people choose to invalidate patents through the defense litigation process or something? It's more complicated than just "yo dude, prior art" because- even if there is prior art- the patent is still in effect, even if some of the claims might seem invalid, etc. IANAL.

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