Google Pledges Not To Sue Over Open-Sourced Patents, Unless You Sue Them First
In the tech industry things have gotten down right ugly when it comes to fighting over patents. It’s gotten so bad that patent lawsuits feel mainstream nowadays and the public has all but gotten numb to all the litigation nonsense. Well, Google is hoping to change the face of patent warfare by making a peaceful pledge of their own.
According to the tech giant, they will no longer sue “any user, distributor or developer of open-source software on specified patents, unless first attacked.” Google introduced this promise to the world in what they are calling the Open Patent Non-Assertion (OPN) Pledge.
In addition to the OPN, Google identified 10 MapReduce-related patents that are already widely in use. Over time, they intend to expand this list, but are hoping that this serves as example to other companies in the industry to follow their lead and make the same pledge. Here’s what Google had to say in their own words:
We hope the OPN Pledge will serve as a model for the industry, and we’re encouraging other patent holders to adopt the pledge or a similar initiative. We believe it has a number of advantages:
-
Transparency. Patent holders determine exactly which patents and related technologies they wish to pledge, offering developers and the public transparency around patent rights.
-
Breadth. Protections under the OPN Pledge are not confined to a specific project or open-source copyright license. (Google contributes a lot of code under such licenses, like the Apache or GNU GPL licenses, but their patent protections are limited.) The OPN Pledge, by contrast, applies to any open-source software—past, present or future—that might rely on the pledged patents.
-
Defensive protection. The Pledge may be terminated, but only if a party brings a patent suit against Google products or services, or is directly profiting from such litigation.
-
Durability. The Pledge remains in force for the life of the patents, even if we transfer them.
