

Google, yahoo, bing state that using schema.org may infringe their patents - railgun2space
http://schema.org/docs/terms.html

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mbreese
How is this surprising? If you use their service, you may need a license to a
patent of theirs, which is granted to you for use of the service. The patent
might not even be issued yet. It seems to me that they are just covering their
bases.

So yes, you may need a patent, however, if you are using schema.org, you are
_not_ infringing on the patent (because they give you a limited license).

Then again, you might not be infringing on a patent too...

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grey
Ugh gross, As I understand it they grant you a patent exception in a very
specific case (Displaying exact schema.org valid tags on a website), but
remove any incentive to make tools that consume those schemas, or to
extend/enhance the schemas at all.

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wccrawford
And they go on to say that there may be strings attached to using things on
schema.org, and anyone that doesn't 'sponsor' that particular item on
schema.org can withhold their patent completely.

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voidr
Well that kind of renders this entire thing pointless. They either make this
an open patent free standard or they shouldn't even bother with it.

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etherealG
does this mean using the standards on this site may potentially land you in
legal trouble later if they decide to enforce these patents?

