Re: How can we submit code patches that implement our (pending) patents?

On Mon, Jul 23, 2018 at 01:12:49PM -0400, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 23, 2018 at 11:37:05AM -0500, Nico Williams wrote:
> > On Mon, Jul 23, 2018 at 11:40:41AM -0400, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> > > Sun Microsystems seemed reasonably trustworthy too.
> >
> > Are there patent grants from Sun that Oracle has attempted to renege on?
> > Are there court cases about that? Links?
>
> No, but I bet there are things Oracle is doing that no one at Sun
> expected to be done, and users who relied on Sun didn't expect to be
> done.

There are questions that the PG core needs help with and which IP
lawyers are needed to answer. There are also business questions,
because sure, even if a patent owner makes an acceptable grant, how fast
and cheaply you could get a lawsuit by them dismissed on the basis of
that grant is a business consideration.

We, the non-lawyer PG community, can give input such as that which I've
contributed:

- I won't read/modify source code involving patents whose grants are
not as wide as X

- the PG core needs advice from IP lawyers

- patents placed in the public domain surely are safe for PG

- there must be patent grant language acceptable to PG

Just merely "but they could do something bad!" from us non-lawyers is
not very good advice. Already PG incurs the risk that its contributors
could act in bad faith. For example, a contributor's employer might sue
PG under copyright and/or trade secrecy law claiming the contribution
was not authorized (this is why some open source projects require
contributor agreements).

Nico
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