[LINK] HP balks at patent provision in GPL update

[Karl Auer]

On Mon, 2006-08-07 at 15:14 +1000, Chris Maltby wrote:
> >>> You receive the Program with a covenant from each author and THE conveyor
> >>> FROM WHOM YOU RECEIVED the Program, and of any material, conveyed under
> >>> this License, on which the Program is based, that the covenanting party
> >>> will not assert (or cause others to assert) any of the party's essential
> >>> patent claims in the material that the party conveyed, against you,
> >>> arising from your exercise of rights under this License. If you convey a
> >>> covered work, you similarly covenant to all recipients TO WHOM YOU CONVEY
> >>> THE WORK, including recipients FROM YOU of works based on the covered work,
> >>> not to assert any of your essential patent claims in the covered work.

> Actually, the other key phrase is "arising from your exercise of rights..."
> as your rights include the right to convey as defined.
> 
> In other words the issue of patent enforcement against people who receive
> it from you would be protected because the act of distribution and sub
> distribution is an exercise of the first recipient's rights. That's what
> give the AND highlighted by Craig its force.

The problem as I see it is that there is no covenant between the
original conveyor and person who gets the stuff from you. The authors
and the conveyor agree not to enforce *their* patents against you. Then
if you pass stuff on, you agree not to enforce *your* patents against
the recipient. But there is nothing in there that propagates the
covenant from HP.

That is, if I get something from HP, I am safe from HP. If I give it to
you, you are safe from me. But you are NOT safe from HP!

Regards, K.

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Karl Auer (kauer at biplane.com.au)                   +61-2-64957160 (h)
http://www.biplane.com.au/~kauer/                  +61-428-957160 (mob)