mark at primefactor
Apr 27, 2007, 11:11 AM
Post #1 of 1
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[julian@mehnle.net: Re: Open Patent certification mark]
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Julian's response to my spf-private email.
----- Forwarded message from Julian Mehnle <julian [at] mehnle> -----
From: Julian Mehnle <julian [at] mehnle>
To: Mark Shewmaker <mark [at] primefactor>, spf-private [at] v2
Subject: Re: Open Patent certification mark
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Mark Shewmaker wrote:
> I'm right at the last minute and at a deadline related to a US
> application for a certification mark on "Open Patent".
>
> This is all part of a project of mine (anyone want to help with
> it? :-) ) where one of the main goals is to end up with a workable
> patent license that operates for patents similarly to how the GPL
> works for software.
>
> Related to all this is the notion that the certification mark
> "Open Patent" can be applied to products/services that are licensed in a
> certain rather friendly way. (Obviously with goods and services
> for which this other patent license is used, but it's not just limited
> to that one license, just as code can be licensed under a copyright
> license other than the GPL and still be considered to be "Free
> Software", even by the FSF.)
>
> In any event, it happens that Open Source/Free Software code would be
> compatible with this "Open Patent" certification mark in many cases.
>
> I have the standards at
> http://www.openpatents.org/certification_mark_standards.html
> at the moment.
>
> And what I'm *really* needing is to show the mark in-use. (That's the
> timing deadline I'm right at.)
>
> I'm asking Scott about doing so on his website for some of his code and
> online record testers.
>
> I also want to ask if there would be any objection to using the mark in
> a couple pages on the openspf.org site. Specifically doing these
> changes:
>
> [...]
>
> Would these changes be okay with folks?
I'm not fundamentally opposed. However, I do have several issues and
questions:
1. <http://www.openpatents.org/certification_mark_standards.html> refers
to "the 'Conditions of Use' provisions of the latest version of Patents
in the Public Interest's 'Open Patent License'", however I cannot find
any OPL "conditions of use" provisions on your site.
2. Do I understand it correctly that there are two ways at participating
in your Open Patents initiative: (a) "joining" at one of several
"options", thus binding oneself to submitting _all_current_and_
_future_ patents and PLIPs to the pool corresponding to the option
chosen, or (b) merely submitting _specific_ patents and PLIPs to one or
more of the pools?
3. Assuming my understanding of (2) is correct, then do I understand it
correctly that using the certification mark of some of the software
provided by the openspf.org website would imply (2b), but not (2a)?
4. Assuming my understanding of (3) is correct as well, then how would
this work given that probably none of the software provided by the
openspf.org website is actually covered by patents or PLIPs?
5. Assuming it would work even without any actual patents, would this
preclude the software covered by the Open Patent certification mark to
be multi-licensed (in addition to the current exclusive BSD/GPL
licenses) under other, non-open-source, or non-OPL-compatible licenses
in the future?
6. Would applying the Open Patent certification mark to some of the
software automatically extend to clause C and D of the certification
mark standards, i.e. to "Any services related to the execution of
software described in (B) above", or to "Any services, including
consulting services and retail services, related to the construction,
design, modification, production, marketing, or delivery of goods and
services described in (A) or (B) above", provided by users of the
software?
7. I'm generally worried about any perpetuality implied by the use of the
OPL or the Open Patent certification mark. IOW, can we undo any
decisions related to this later?
8. I'm reluctant to start using the "TM" mark on the openspf.org website.
If we use it for one trade mark, we may have to use it for _all_ the
trade marks used on the website, which I'd very much like to avoid.
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