[License-review] For Approval: OpenMDW License Agreement, versions 1.1 (OpenMDW-1.1)

[Richard Fontana]

On Mon, Aug 31, 2026 at 8:02 PM John Colagioia via License-review <
license-review at lists.opensource.org> wrote:

>
> The jump to copyright seems worrying, because this is (presumably) a
> copyright license.  In fact, that raises a more worrying aspect, the other
> half of the anti-litigation clause, "...unless that lawsuit was in response
> to a corresponding lawsuit first brought against you."
>
> I'm not familiar with any term of art, here, so should we read
> "corresponding" as meaning that the lawsuit relates to the use of the
> model?
>

This is another interesting point. I'm not sure it's the biggest problem
but I would say that "corresponding" is ambiguous.

The clause again is:

>* If you file, maintain, or voluntarily participate in a lawsuit against any
*>* person or entity asserting that the Model Materials directly or indirectly
*>* infringe any patent or copyright, then all rights and grants made to you
*>* hereunder are terminated, unless that lawsuit was in response to a
*>* corresponding lawsuit first brought against you.*

I don't think "corresponding" should be read as meaning "the claims of the
two lawsuits must have related underlying subject matter", but I'm not sure
why the word is needed at all. If the idea was that the two "lawsuits" had
to be claims within the same case/litigation, the use of the word "lawsuit"
is kind of odd. My guess is that "a corresponding" is simply supposed to be
equivalent to "another", but I'm not sure.

Richard
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