Twitter Introduces Innovators Patent Agreement

I wonder if Twitter will retroactively apply this to the "pull to refresh" patent they acquired when they purchased the Tweetie and turned it into the official Twitter client:<p><a href="http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&#38;Sect2=HITOFF&#38;u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-adv.html&#38;r=1&#38;f=G&#38;l=50&#38;d=PG01&#38;p=1&#38;S1=20100199180.PGNR.&#38;OS=dn/20100199180&#38;RS=DN/20100199180" rel="nofollow">http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&#38;Sec...</a>

Can't believe someone at Twitter wrote this. It's riddled with semicolons.<p><i>(ducks)</i>

It's a very interesting move. I guess the calculation (apart from real benevolence, which I don't mean to undercut) would be that the good will and good press, affection from idealistic engineers and the resulting hiring and retention advantage, and the effect on the rest of the patent landscape (over which they have no direct control) is worth more than the patents themselves.<p>The thing is, how that plays out depends on whether or not other companies agree to change their behavior. If it's true, as another comment says, that they will allow Apple to use the pull-to-refresh patent, for example, that's some clear leverage lost. If no one else makes similar moves, won't Twitter be at a disadvantage in the context of the "patent wars?" Will the other advantages I listed above still be worth it if the patent landscape doesn't change? Does this effect the value (especially as a potential acquisition target) of Twitter? I don't know enough about their portfolio of patents to know how valuable there patents might be.<p>In any case, it's at least something new-feeling in the story of software patents. Hopefully it will have some positive effects.<p>EDIT: Also, hearing all this talk of "defensive" patent use makes me think about Intellectual Ventures; does that sort of thing count as defensive under this plan?

This is awesome! I'm looking forward to seeing which tech companies sign on.

'The company will not use the patents in offensive litigation without the permission of the inventors.'<p>Honestly how hard is it to go up to someone and say "Let us troll with this patent and we will cut you in on 20% of the profit". I know quite a few people who would do that deal just to pay for their kids college in the future. I don't see this changing anything except for inventors now getting a cut of the deal.

Why would a startup <i>not</i> do this (aside from wanting to be a greedy patent troll?)?<p>No seriously, if I have a startup that cares about my employees, is there any real reason to not do this?

I like the idea. From the agreement, clause 2:<p>'An assertion of claims of the Patents shall be considered for a “Defensive Purpose” if the claims are asserted .... (c) otherwise to deter a patent litigation threat against Assignee or Assignee’s users, affiliates, customers, suppliers, or distributors.'<p>That part (c) is pretty vague.

Glad to see Twitter doing this, it's definitely a step in the right direction. In my opinion what this really needs is the support from another well-known company. If a company like Facebook announced next week that they were adopting the Innovators Patent Agreement, I think that could get the ball rolling and we would start to see many other companies join the cause.

It's also on Github for comment: <a href="https://github.com/twitter/innovators-patent-agreement" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/twitter/innovators-patent-agreement</a>

Here's the original post submission on the Twitter Engineering blog: <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3853654" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3853654</a>

Didn't read the fine print...<p>Does this mean that you will be able to use any Twitter-patented technology at will and not expect to be sued for it?

&#62; If Assignee needs to assert any of the Patent claims against any entity for other than a Defensive Purpose, Assignees must obtain prior written permission from all of the Inventors without additional consideration or threat.<p>Doesn't this nullify everything else? I would love to believe we live in a world where inventors would stop their patents being used wrongly if they had the power. But I honestly believe these are a very tiny minority. Won't most inventors just agree with the company they work for anyway? There doesn't need to be any explicit threat, but just working for a company probably means that you'll do what's necessary to keep your bosses happy. Won't companies just get a signed consensus from inventors and keep suing anyway?<p>Am I missing something obvious?

So what is the difference between this agreement and simply publishing the guts of a patent in a public way that establishes a commercial use date?

So, what if you are the inventor of a patent on company A, then you get hired or create company B, which uses your patented inventions on company A?<p>You won't give them permission to sue you..

&#62; 2(b) against an Entity that has filed, maintained, or voluntarily participated in a patent infringement lawsuit against another in the past ten years, so long as the Entity has not instituted the patent infringement lawsuit defensively in response to a patent litigation threat against the Entity<p>So it counts as a defensive purpose if they're suing <i>anyone</i> who's filed a patent infringement case in the last decade? That's pretty friggin' broad.

Twitter is quickly becoming OSS's best role model - imitators take note.

This is good. Personally I would rather in a world where every so called "invention" is immediately documented publicly so that from that point on there is prior art and nobody can claim a patent on it.<p>Tipping the balance of offensive to defensive patents will definitely also help.

This move strikes me as a truce agreement proposed by someone with no sword. How many technology patents does Twitter even HAVE, not counting Loren Brichter's "pull-to-refresh" UI innovation?

Could a public company's leadership even adopt such a measure without getting successfully sued by its shareholders? They would be putting liabilities on the company's IP assets, decreasing their market value, which is not in the interest of shareholders.<p>Would it just fly under the radar? I guess the company would have to argue that this allows them to pursue and retain better talent, which might be an easy case...

To protect your idea/product using patents is OK but using them to stop innovations is a dark side. How to define the balance between using patents as weapons and using them to secure investments is the big question. If your innovative project uses something well-known, but adds the essence on top of that, do you have to pay a license for all the bricks you use?

Might be a step in the right direction, but when can we just ditch all software patents?! (I know - bit of an unrelated comment)

The best form of defence is attack, is the language really air tight enough for companies to not use them in attack?

This thing should be on Docracy

A nice idea, but many developers' employment contracts already state that they assign all inventions created during the course of their duties to the company, free and clear. How would this help such a situation?

So so I'm clear on this, when they say patents can only be used for defensive purposes, are they saying this will effectively nullify patent law in regard to this particular patent?

Will Google follow suit?

cool. a step in the right direction

Mmmmmm IPA

This is pretty poorly drafted.

No company in their right mind should sign this. This throws the baby out with the bathwater. There are actually legitimate uses for patents and if you're working on something non-trivial your company might want to (and might even be obligated to in order to do right by shareholders) use the patent offensively.