Copyleft/guide Changeset - 6d6d18f1e6b1

...

@@ -1406,7 +1406,7 @@ the Northern District of California District Court examined the question of

whether the application program interfaces (APIs) associated with the Java

programming language are entitled to copyright protection.  While the

court expressly declined to rule whether all APIs are free to use without

license (872 F. Supp.2nd 974 at 1002), the court held that the command

license (872 F. Supp.2d 974 at 1002), the court held that the command

structure and taxonomy of the APIs were not protectable under copyright law.

Specifically, the court characterized the command structure and taxonomy as

both a ``method of operation'' (using an approach not dissimilar to the

...

@@ -1816,7 +1816,7 @@ seller that dominate the product or any uses of the product to which the

parties might reasonably contemplate the product will be put.

\end{quotation}

Hewlett-Packard Co. v. Repeat-O-Type Stencil Mfg. Corp., Inc., 123 F.3d

1445 (Fed. Cir. 1997).

1445, 1451 (Fed. Cir. 1997).

Of course, Free Software is licensed, not sold, and there are indeed

restrictions placed on the licensee, but those differences are not likely

...

@@ -1835,17 +1835,16 @@ software is what would be considered ``uses of the [software] to which

the parties might reasonably contemplate the product will be put.'' A

clever advocate may argue that the implied license granted by GPLv2 is

larger in scope than the express license in other Free Software

licenses with express patent grants, in that, the patent license

clause of many of those licenses are specifically limited to the

patent claims covered by the code as licensed by the patentee.

To the contrary, GPLv2's implied patent license grants the GPLv2 licensee a

patent license to do much more than just that because the GPLv2 licensee,

under the doctrine of implied patent license, is free to practice any

patent claims held by the licensor that cover ``reasonably contemplated

uses'' of the GPL'd code, which may very well include creation and

distribution of derivative works since the GPL's terms, under which the

patented code is distributed, expressly permits such activity.

licenses with express patent grants, in that the patent license

clause of many of those other Free  Software licenses are specifically

limited to the patent claims covered by the code as licensed by the patentee.

In contrast, a GPLv2 licensee, under the doctrine of implied patent license,

is free to practice any patent claims held by the licensor that cover

``reasonably contemplated uses'' of the GPL'd code, which may very well

include creation and distribution of derivative works since the GPL's terms,

under which the patented code is distributed, expressly permits such activity.

Further supporting this result is the Federal Circuit's pronouncement that

the recipient of a patented article has, not only an implied license to

...

@@ -1860,6 +1859,8 @@ of constant evolution and improvement. In this way, the law of implied

patent license used by the GPLv2 ensures that the community mutually

benefits from the licensing of patents to any single community member.

Note that simply because GPLv2'd software has an implied patent license does

not mean that any patents held by a distributor of GPLv2'd code become

worthless. To the contrary, the patents are still valid and enforceable