[License-review] Request for consultation with CC on patent issue

[Chuck Swiger]

On Feb 21, 2012, at 11:24 AM, Henrik Ingo wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 21, 2012 at 8:48 PM, Chuck Swiger <chuck at codefab.com> wrote:
>> And clauses 2 (and 3, as needed) make it clear that the Affirmer has agreed to not make "associated claims and causes of action" to the work under the CC0 license against anyone.
> 
> In 2: "all of Affirmer's Copyright and Related Rights and associated
> claims and causes of action, whether now known or unknown (including
> existing as well as future claims and causes of action), in the Work."
> 
> In 3: "royalty-free, [...yada yada...] and unconditional license to
> exercise Affirmer's Copyright and Related Rights in the Work"
> 
> The Related Rights are enumerated in §1 and do *not* include patent
> rights. They are only so called "Neighboring rights" ie
> "copyright-like" rights.

That's right.  But that's also why the phrase quoted above doesn't end with "all of Affirmer's Copyright and Related Rights", but continues with "and associated claims and causes of action, whether now known or unknown (including existing as well as future claims and causes of action)...."

> The paragraphs 1-3 are already carefully worded such that there
> doesn't seem to be an implied patent grant/waiver, and with the
> explicit exclusion in 4a I don't see why the Affirmer would have
> agreed anything related to his patent rights.

The Affirmer may indeed retain patent rights, if any.  But they've also promised not to make a claim with regard to the Work they've placed into the public domain and/or under the CC0 license clause 3 fallback.

>> CC0 satisfies OSD 7, because it grants (or attempts to grant, subject to local limitations about whether something actually can be placed into the "public domain") all of the rights possessed by the Affirmer to the work to everyone else.
> 
> By "all of the rights" you mean also patent rights? I just don't see
> it. If that was the case, maybe the text can be made clearer? The
> previously cited FAQ suggests it doesn't grant "all of the rights".

True, CC0 doesn't grant all of the rights the Affirmer might hold into the public domain-- ie, if they have a patent, they retain the ability to license it for a fee, etc for _other_ works.

However, with regard to the Work placed under CC0, the Affirmer has explicitly chosen that "the public can reliably and without fear of later claims of infringement build upon, modify, incorporate in other works, reuse and redistribute as freely as possible in any form whatsoever and for any purposes, including without limitation commercial purposes...."

I think that's self-explanatory, but I'd be happy to hear how you'd change the CC0 text to make things more clear?

Regards,
-- 
-Chuck