

Google Wave Patent License (what does this mean?) - paulgb
http://www.waveprotocol.org/patent-license

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tlrobinson
Google promises not to sue you (or rather gives you a license so they can't
sue you) for violating any of their patents while implementing the Wave
Protocol. Unless you sue them.

Pretty standard for open specifications backed by large companies, I think.

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glevy
Leave it to the attorneys to come up with scary stuff. It seems that Google
may be learning from Microsoft to push its weight around. I wonder if this
would violate antitrust laws?

Under normal circumstances if Google were a smaller company, an inventor whose
invention have been infringed by Google, would have the option of shopping
around and use another product than Wave. And Google may be entirely in its
own right to refuse providing him with a service. However, given the potential
of Wave and the enormous size of Google, Wave could possibly completely
replace email. Depriving the inventor of the Wave license would cause him
irreparable harm since he cannot shop around for a comparable product.Google
is facing an antitrust issue. Google is becoming like Microsoft.

Here is another angle: Background: If several persons are co-inventors on a
wave invention without having assigned it to a single entity such as a
company, then each co-inventor own 100% of the invention. This means that each
one can independently conduct business such as leasing or selling 100% of the
invention. So let's say that Google infringes on the invention and one of the
inventors sues Google for 100% of damage. Google by contract can cancel the
license for that one inventor but the other ones can still use the wave
license. So one of the inventor needs to be willing to sacrifice himself.

Who would sue Google anyways???? Microsoft???

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paulgb
_If you institute patent litigation against any entity (including a cross-
claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that the implementation of the
specification constitutes direct or contributory patent infringement, then any
patent licenses for the specification granted to you under this License shall
terminate as of the date such litigation is filed._

This part piqued my interest. So if I sue some third party because I feel
Google's implementation of Wave violates my patent, I lose the license to the
Wave patents? Or if I feel that a third party implementation of Wave violates
my patents, do I also lose my license?

Eg. if a Wave implementation violates my (say) encryption patent, and I file a
lawsuit for patent violation, do I lose my license to the Wave patents?

Seems like a neat way to scare off patent trolls, but I'm not sure I'm
interpreting it right.

~~~
wmf
I think you are interpreting it right, although it won't have any effect on
pure patent trolls since they don't need to license Google's patents anyway.

