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Here is Jennifer's proposed re-wording of item 3.<br>
<br>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="margin-left: 27pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: -27pt;"><span
style="font-size: 10.5pt;">3. <span style=""> </span><u>Grant
of Patent License</u>. Subject to the terms and conditions of this
Agreement,
You hereby grant to the Foundation and to recipients of software
distributed by
the Foundation a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, fully-paid,
royalty-free,
irrevocable (except as stated in this section) patent license to have
made,
use, offer to sell, sell, import, and otherwise transfer the Work,
where such
license applies only to those patent claims licensable by You that are
necessarily infringed by Your Contribution(s) alone or by combination
of Your
Contribution(s) with the Work to which such Contribution(s) were
submitted, as
such Work existed as of the date of your Contribution(s). This patent
license
shall not apply to any other combinations which include the
Contribution(s). If
any entity (a “Litigant”) institutes patent litigation against You or
any other
entity (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging
that
your Contribution, or the Work to which you have contributed,
constitutes
direct or contributory patent infringement, then any patent licenses
granted to
that Litigant under this Agreement for that Contribution or Work shall
terminate as of the date such litigation is filed.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<br>
Does this clear up the confusion? If so I'll incorporate this into the
agreement and motion to accept this animal.<br>
<br>
Bob<br>
<br>
<br>
Jason Birch wrote:
<blockquote
cite="mid8E468917B01800408B91984428BE03DD05C5668F@starfish.nanaimo.ca"
type="cite">
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I understood the intent. What was fuzzy for me was the wording. That clause uses the word "entity" twice, but when speaking about license revocation it does not specify which of the earlier noted entities it was referring to.
Jason
________________________________
From: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:mapguide-internals-bounces@lists.osgeo.org">mapguide-internals-bounces@lists.osgeo.org</a> on behalf of Robert Bray
Sent: Tue 2007-01-23 2:02 PM
To: MapGuide Internals Mail List
Subject: Re: [mapguide-internals] PSC: Contributor Agreements
Trevor,
I read it and did not get it either, so I consulted our current lawyer Jennifer Daehler. Hopefully Jennifer's explanation below makes sense:
I can understand the question. This issue gets handled different ways by different open source groups. In this form, the intent is that the suing entity's patent license is revoked. Here's an example to help make it clearer (I hope I won't cause further confusion! :-)):
"A" is a contributor to OSGeo under this Agreement. So OSGeo has the right to license A's contributions to the MapGuide OS project.
"Entity X" decides to license MapGuide OS from OSGeo. Entity X then decides that the portion of the MapGuide OS project that came from A actually infringes on one of Entity X's patents. Entity X decides to sue A (or decides to sue any other licensee of the MapGuide project) alleging that A's contribution infringes Entity X's patent.
This provision says that if Entity X takes this course, then A can take the position with Entity X that Entity X's patent license to A's contribution has been revoked.
In reality, there have not been too many patent infringement actions launched against open source projects. However, the fact remains that open source projects have very little leverage against patent infringement actions. This provision is an attempt to provide some retribution for instituting patent lawsuits against contributors to the project. It's not any guarantee by a long shot, but it's a mechanism that a number of open source projects have adopted.
Thanks,
Bob
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