What's with this effort being launched/announced at the same time as the LOT network thing, also on HN right now? <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8725623" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8725623</a><p>Are these competing efforts? Are they compatible with each other? Do the projects have any relationship, positive or negative?
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer.<p>So DPL-licensed patents can never be used offensively in the future, but wouldn't they also greatly reduce the inventor's chances of ever making any money with their patent?<p>Large corporations will just use your patent for free, because their own patents are held by separate shell companies, so they are "part of the DPL network" by default.<p>And if you can't make any money with your patent, why make a patent? It's costly and complicated. Might as well just publicly disclose the invention (in a legally acceptable way), and the result will be the same as filing a patent under DPL.
I'm curious as to the enforceability of the all future patents clause. If I decide to license a patent under the DPL today, can I terminate my own rights as a licensee at some future date and avoid having to license my future patents in the same manner?
As an FYI, donations to the EFF are being matched right now:
<a href="https://supporters.eff.org/donate/power-up-2014" rel="nofollow">https://supporters.eff.org/donate/power-up-2014</a>
The public announcement piece doesn't seem very viable long-term. A personal URL that could go away in a year or two when a domain registration lapses, amongst many other such scenarios. Why not have a central repo of declarees or a distributed block-chain listing them?
Not all software patents are born equal. IP is a hard problem that is very difficult to solve. The solution is not to just give up. These schemes, like the DPL, are fine as long as we avoid language like "bullies, trolls, or other leeches" which is inflammatory and counter productive. There is likely a role for patent pooling and charging as it rewards and incentives innovation - it just hasn't been fully figured out yet.