<div dir="auto"><div>But one that is triggered by a copyright assertion is.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Pam</div><div><br></div><div data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr">Pamela S. Chestek<br>Chestek Legal<br>4641 Post St.<br>Unit 4316<br>El Dorado Hills, CA 95762<br>+1 919-800-8033<br><a href="mailto:pamela@chesteklegal.com" target="_blank">pamela@chesteklegal.com</a><br><a href="http://www.chesteklegal.com" target="_blank">www.chesteklegal.com</a></div></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Wed, Aug 19, 2026, 9:41\u202fAM McCoy Smith <mccoy@lexpan.law> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><br>
On 8/15/2026 6:01 PM, Richard Fontana via License-review wrote:<br>
> The matter is discussed at some length in the Third Discussion Draft<br>
> Rationale (March 2027)<br>
> (<a href="https://gplv3.fsf.org/gpl3-dd3-rationale.pdf/download" rel="noreferrer noreferrer" target="_blank">https://gplv3.fsf.org/gpl3-dd3-rationale.pdf/download</a>). I'll quote<br>
> the passage (and apologies for the seemingly off-topic discussion, but<br>
> I actually think it is relevant in relation to the issue of historical<br>
> precedent for patent assertions leading to termination of copyright as<br>
> well as patent licenses):<br>
><br>
> <begin><br>
> <snip><br>
> In Draft 3 the termination provision of section 8 has been revised to<br>
> indicate that, if a licensee violates the GPL, a contributor may<br>
> terminate any patent licenses that it granted under the first<br>
> paragraph of section 11 to that licensee, in addition to any copyright<br>
> permissions the contributor granted to the licensee. Therefore, a<br>
> contributor may terminate the patent licenses it granted to a<br>
> downstream licensee who brings patent infringement litigation in<br>
> violation of section 10. The changes we have made to sections 8, 10<br>
> and 11, taken as a whole, eliminate the special need for the narrow<br>
> patent retaliation provision of section 2, which we have removed in<br>
> Draft 3.<br>
> <end><br>
><br>
> The penultimate sentence there interestingly does not quite say<br>
> explicitly that the relevant patent assertion scenario can lead to<br>
> termination of copyright as well as patent licenses, but it seems to<br>
> me that there's no other way to interpret that paragraph, or indeed<br>
> the relevant text of GPLv3.<br>
<br>
I think maybe you mean the third-to-last quoted sentence, but yes this <br>
seems to make clear that the GPLv3 author can terminate patent *&* <br>
copyright rights upon a patent assertion. That had been my recollection <br>
from the drafting days, but I sort of feel like the text describing that <br>
right wound up being sub-optimal (IMHO) in expressing that right. Thanks <br>
for digging into the history!<br>
<br>
So at least MPLv2 & GPLv3 (and maybe GPLv2?) give a (C) termination <br>
right upon patent assertions. CDDLv1.1 does as well (see Sec 6.2). So, <br>
at a minimum, I think we can conclude that a patent defensive <br>
termination clause that allows for termination of copyright rights isn't <br>
anomalous.<br>
<br>
McCoy<br>
<br>
<br>
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</blockquote></div>