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<p>Moming,</p>
<p>I'm not following what you're saying. As I understand McCoy's
point, it is this:</p>
<p>- Licensor is any contributor who added copyrightable content;</p>
<p>- User A is someone who is using Licensor's version of the
software but has not contributed any copyrightable content and is
not distributing the software;</p>
<p>-User B is someone who is using Licensor's version of the
software, has not contributed any copyrightable content, but is
distributing the software, who you are characterizing as a
sublicensor of Licensor's rights;</p>
<p>- User C is the person who owns the allegedly infringed patent. </p>
<p>===============</p>
<p>User C sues a Licensor for patent infringement - the license
terminates.</p>
<p>User C sues User A for for patent infringement - the license does
not terminate because User A is not a Licensor of anything, they
are just using the software.</p>
<p></p>
<p>User C sues User B for patent infringement - the license does not
terminate. First, characterizing User B as a sublicensor may not
be a correct assumption - why wouldn't User C say "no, I'm not a
sublicensee of User B, I'm a direct licensee of Licensor who I
haven't sued, so the license doesn't terminate"? But even assuming
User B is a sublicensor, it doesn't terminate the license. User B
is a sublicensor, not <b><i>"the </i></b>Licensor," i.e., the
"rights owner" per your definition, so the license doesn't
terminate.</p>
<p>That is the discrimination that I understand McCoy to be
describing. The license only terminates if User C sues someone who
contributed copyrightable content, because those are the only
people (or companies) who have a license that can be terminated.
Everyone else can still be sued for copyright infringement.</p>
<p>The use of the word "the" in "the Licensor" in the termination
section is problematic for another reason. The corpus may have
many licensors. I think the more natural reading is that only the
license from the person being sued terminates, not all of them. If
it said "any legal action against <b><i>_a_</i></b> Licensor
alleging that the Licensed Materials and/or Derivative Materials
infringe any patent worldwide" would terminate all of them. But
that doesn't solve the problem described above with mere users,
not contributors, being the defendant in the patent suit.</p>
<p>Pam</p>
<div class="moz-signature">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 class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:pamela@chesteklegal.com">pamela@chesteklegal.com</a><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.chesteklegal.com">www.chesteklegal.com</a><br>
<br>
<br>
</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 9/18/2026 2:58 AM, Moming Duan
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAE=aCWXT-aUiS3ZE1c9dmp7+QxKm41wWM4wtNH6ytH=A1uK1LQ@mail.gmail.com">
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<div dir="ltr">Hi McCoy and all,<br>
<br>
<br>
OSD 5 says the license must not discriminate against any person
or group of persons. Here, Licensor is a role in the license,
not a person. And the license itself says how the role moves.
The Section 2.1 grant is sublicensable, and 2.2(a)(i) requires a
copy of this License to travel with every Distribution. Even the
definition of "Licensed Materials", things "Distributed by the
Licensor", only really works if each distributor is the Licensor
for what it distributes. So a licensee who passes the model or a
Derivative Material on is granting the license onward. It stands
as Licensor to the people it supplied, and a patent claim by
those people does trigger termination.<br>
<br>
About your May 2025 conclusion, I want to be precise. You wrote
then that this termination provision was not an OSD violation
but an uptake issue, and that conclusion was about the
Derivative Materials part, which is your Q4: <span
style="background-color:transparent"><a
href="https://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review_lists.opensource.org/2025-May/005764.html"
moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review_lists.opensource.org/2025-May/005764.html</a></span>
<div>
<div><span style="background-color:transparent">The OSD 5
question, whether the trigger should reach beyond the
Licensor, is new in this final call, and you yourself put
it as "arguably". So I read it as an open question rather
than a settled one, and not something to concede on my
own.</span></div>
<div><br>
It's true that a user who never distributed anything, and
sues another licensee, does not lose the license. That is
deliberate. The patent grant has one source, and the promise
not to assert runs to that source. A dispute between two
people who never granted each other anything is outside that
exchange.<br>
<br>
So my reading is that the clause, as written, does not
discriminate against any person or group, and I'd like to
keep the current wording.<br>
<br>
<br>
Best,<br>
Moming<br>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<br>
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