Question about documentation and patents

[Chris Travers]

On Dec 9, 2007 8:08 AM, Grayg Ralphsnyder <wgrayg at mountain.net> wrote:

>
>
> I think that documentation would be covered by copyright and not
> license.  A listing of the actual source code would be covered by the
> same license as the actual software.  If the source code is included in
> the documentation, is the documentation in its entirety covered by the
> source code license?  That "increase the value of the variable a by one"
> is an algorithm.  What to do with that - copyright, license ?  What if
> it was the algorithm (method) for Fourier Transform ?


ok, suppose I release documentation under the GNU GPL and document (via
source code samples) a method under which I have a patent.

I would argue that the GPL v2's implied patent licenses would certainly
*not* apply here since mere use (i.e. reading, etc) of the documentation
doesn't violate my patent.

The GPL v3 almost certainly would not apply either.  note in section 11;
"A contributor's "essential patent claims" are all patent claims owned or
controlled by the contributor, whether already acquired or hereafter
acquired, that would be infringed by some manner, permitted by this License,
of making, using, or selling its contributor version, but do not include
claims that would be infringed only as a consequence of further modification
of the contributor version. "

Documentation can describe patents without infringing (otherwise downloading
the patent application itself could infringe ;-) ).  and making the patent
work with software would only occur in the case of further modification.
Hence there is no slippery slope here.

Similarly, I would think that if a contributor added lines of code relating
to their patents but commented them out, the GPL would not give you
permission to uncomment them.

IANAL though.

Best Wishes,
Chris Travers
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