If you want everyone to have it, you patent, then charge nothing to license it.
If you don’t patent it, then a corporate patent troll will come in, patent it, charge an inordinate amount for the license, then bury you in paperwork with a lawsuit so you can’t fight back. Effectively killing the tech.
You copyright it (free) and publish online with a copyleft license.
You would absolutely win in court without the patent. Just point to the publishing date on GitHub. Then you sue them for filing a blatantly fraudulent patent.
Says someone whos never blocked an assassin’s ninja star with a binder full of patent paperwork. There was also some incorporation stuff in there, but not enough to have worked with that alone.
sometimes you want some sort of control, or trade… like, (as much as like everyone else hates them this is the best example i can think of) tesla holds a bunch of patents and says people are free to use them, but if you do you can’t sue them for patent infringement: they still have some control
If they wanted to have people make their own, why would they patent it?
If you want everyone to have it, you patent, then charge nothing to license it.
If you don’t patent it, then a corporate patent troll will come in, patent it, charge an inordinate amount for the license, then bury you in paperwork with a lawsuit so you can’t fight back. Effectively killing the tech.
No, that’s not how open source hardware works.
You copyright it (free) and publish online with a copyleft license.
You would absolutely win in court without the patent. Just point to the publishing date on GitHub. Then you sue them for filing a blatantly fraudulent patent.
Source: I work in open hardware
How many suits for these kinds of blatantly fraudulent patents have actually been won? And lost?
Patents does not have defensive uses, only offensive.
You beat patent trolls by demonstrating you published first.
Says someone whos never blocked an assassin’s ninja star with a binder full of patent paperwork. There was also some incorporation stuff in there, but not enough to have worked with that alone.
Clearly you lack real experience in the field.
They can be defensive in a roundabout way like the x86/amd64 patents
Only against practicing entities, and if you have enough cash reserves to deter them with legal expenses.
sometimes you want some sort of control, or trade… like, (as much as like everyone else hates them this is the best example i can think of) tesla holds a bunch of patents and says people are free to use them, but if you do you can’t sue them for patent infringement: they still have some control
Yes, Tesla is a good example. Only evil companies with malintent file patents.