[License-discuss] [Non-DoD Source] Re: patent rights and the OSD

[Stephen Kellat]

On Mar 7, 2017, at 10:08 PM, Tzeng, Nigel H. <Nigel.Tzeng at jhuapl.edu> wrote:
> 
> You know the more I think about this, the disclaimer of patent rights in CC0 is probably best for GOSS because it avoids the attempt for a one size fit all patent grant language among different agencies with different policies and the complexity under which patent rights are awarded to whom under the Bayh-Dole Act and Executive Order 10096.
> 
> Employees of federal agencies, especially research oriented ones, have some financial interest and rights under 10096.
> 
> Likewise non-profits and small businesses under Bayh-Dole.
> 
> IMHO patent grant language in FOSS licenses provide a false sense of security.
> 
> I would rather the government open source as much as possible regardless of patent rights as long as any known patents are disclosed. As seen in Ximpleware v Versata the patents typically only cover a small portion of the overall system (VTD-XML). While it is relevant from the perspective of being able to use the system as built it is less relevant from a code reuse perspective.
> 
> For large government systems significant software components could often be reused without the specific portions covered under patent.
> 
> So just having a copyright license to the entire project would provide significant value to the community. There is code I wrote 30 years ago I'd love to get access to again even if I couldn't use the rest of the system.
> 
> 
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After a less than fabulous day at work for IRS dealing with my tiny corner of tax law as well as my accounts work, I am tempted after reading this.  Perhaps this could be used as well as the rest of this thread as pre-decisional input to open a tight Inquiry in the Federal Register.  That's the first step we can take to move into building a formal record for a body of law.  Alternatively getting something chartered under the Federal Advisory Committees Act might help move this forward.

I think the debate has dragged on a bit for more than a few months.  Moving to where desirable federal policy/policies are adopted is probably doable.  Could we narrow this down to 3 or fewer courses of action that might be explored by ARL counsel in an inquiry notice?  Even if list participants are the only people that respond to a notice in the Federal Register we're still building a useful record for later use such as Federal Acquisition Rules changes, for example.

Depending upon what shows up in the President's budget set to drop Monday, I either will have a lot of time on my hands coming up or an ICTAP certificate plus lots of time on my hands.  I want to see Federal OSS policy evolve.  We have laid the groundwork here but need to get it in the official record soon.

Stephen Michael Kellat 
GS-0962-07/1
These views are solely my own and not those of the US Government.  Rank, position, grade, and bureau are cited for identification purposes only.