[License-discuss] Public domain license - Public Domain Customized

[David Woolley]

On 04/12/14 17:57, Joe Kua wrote:
> I wish to release my software in public domain including giving
> explicit patent grants. Is Public Domain Customized a good license to
> choose ?

There is no such thing as a public domain licence.  The documents are 
combinations of an attempt to abandon copyright, meaning you can't 
licence, and a, fallback, licence that attempts to give away as many 
rights as possible, even though you still own the copyright and moral 
rights.

If you didn't want patent rights, why did you patent it in the first 
place?  Actually there might be a good reason in that the existence of a 
patent might be more reliable than publishing your invention in 
establishing prior art, and therefore blocking another patent.  However, 
I think there is no way of abandoning a patent once you have acquired it.

In most countries, including the UK, an attempt to abandon copyright 
will fail; if you want to put something in the public domain, you must 
die and then wait 70 years.  Many question whether anyone except the 
federal government can abandon it in the USA.