Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Johannes Ernst <jernst+lists.ibiblio.org AT netmesh.us>]

The only issue I'm raising on this list is:
do or don't the CC licenses currently have any impact on IP rights 
other than copyright.

The possible answers seem to be:
 1) they do not touch any rights that may or may not exist under 
trademark, patent etc. law
 2) they do touch those rights, and this is how
 3) the issue is unclear.

If the answer is #3, which is what I suspect, can I raise the issue of 
"can we do something about this", because it would mean that today, it 
is impossible for people to use a CC license to publish an article 
about "we just invented the light bulb". And I don't think that 
uncertainty is in anyone's interest.

I think the easiest fix would be to answer my question per #1, and 
clearly state so in the license text.




On Dec 28, 2004, at 7:21, Branko Collin wrote:

> On 27 Dec 2004, at 19:23, Johannes Ernst wrote:
>
> > Well, take an OSI-approved license that explicitly talks about it:
> > http://opensource.org/licenses/sunpublic.php, section 2.1: ".. grants
> > ... under Patent Claims ...".
>
> That example seems to explicitely only grant a patent license for the
> original code, not for code resulting from any modification:
>
> "no patent license is granted: 1) for code that You delete from the
> Original Code; 2) separate from the Original Code; or 3) for
> infringements caused by: i) the modification of the Original Code or
> ii) the combination of the Original Code with other software or
> devices."
>
> For code resulting from modification, only patents by the author of
> the modification are licensed, and only for the modified portions of
> the code. (Paragraph 2.2.)
>
> Patents on software can be used as a sort of copyright replacement.
> An unscrupulous contributor to a FOSS project could contribute code
> whilst knowing, but hiding, that he also has a patent on the method
> behind the code. Once the project has become popular, he starts
> demaning license fees. Patent provisions in FOSS licenses are, AFAIK,
> to close this gap. I do not see the broad, viral patent licenses that
> you see.
>
> --
> branko collin
> collin AT xs4all.nl
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