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

[David Rudin]

The copyright termination remedy has precedent in specification licensing. The OWF agreements have carried it since 2009, the Community Specification License since 2020. Admittedly, both are specification agreements and were never submitted for OSI approval.

OWFa 1.0 § 3.1.2.1 — and 0.9 before it — terminates "all rights, grants, and promises made by me to you under this Agreement." Not under Section 3, but under the Agreement, and § 2.1 is the copyright grant. The FAQ is explicit: the signer's promises not to assert its Granted Claims "and its copyrights" terminate; "defensive termination only means that the patent and copyright licenses terminate" (Q16). The copyright license is given irrevocably "except for defensive purposes" (Q3).

The CSL carries it forward. The copyright license is irrevocable "except as expressly stated in this License" (§ 1.1), and the express statement is the defensive termination clause, which terminates "any licenses granted under this License" (§ 2.1.4).

The reasoning is that an instrument covering one body of material under several overlapping IP regimes is granting one IP bargain, not a group of individual bargains based on distinct IP regimes.  If the remedy reaches only patents, a licensee can assert copyright in the materials it received and keep its copyright license to those same materials. Closing that asymmetry is the point.

David

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