| Matthew Rosewarne on 9 Nov 2007 22:51:29 -0000 |
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On Friday 09 November 2007, James Barrett wrote: > On Friday 09 November 2007 04:46:04 pm Brent Saner wrote: > > it'd be neat of you could GPL hardware, or patents, things like that... i > > mean, that's what Open OEM (http://www.innovationstage.com/openoem/) is > > doing, but that's just for computers. it'd be nice to have a patenting > > license that one can apply to ANY type of hardware/mechanics/etc. The problem with trying to apply a software license to physical goods is the difference between a product that can be copied at infinitesimal cost vs. one that requires expensive production facilities and raw materials. > I was thinking of that very same thing a few nights ago. The tradeoff of > patents for mechanical items is that you get the sole rights to production > of your invention only if you show everyone how it is created. I suppose > that if someone patented an invention and then licensed production of it to > people for free, it might work out. I would hope that with such an > agreement there would be some sort of binding clause which states that > improvements on the invention would remain free. Of course IANAL. A GPL > for mechanical items sounds like a great idea to me. The way the GPL handles patents is that it grants (explicitly) a patent license to anyone who uses the product or distributes it under the GPL. If you're only releasing the product under the GPL, then it's a (fairly nasty) way to stomp on any non-GPL competitor. Otherwise, you can license the patent out like you would usually. I'm not sure how that would apply to physical objects, though. Attachment:
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