Re: Oracle indemnifies PostgreSQL on its patents

From: Bruce Momjian <bruce(at)momjian(dot)us>
To: "Jeroen T(dot) Vermeulen" <jtv(at)xs4all(dot)nl>
Cc: Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us>, "Joshua D(dot) Drake" <jd(at)commandprompt(dot)com>, Luke Lonergan <llonergan(at)greenplum(dot)com>, PostgreSQL-development <pgsql-hackers(at)postgresql(dot)org>
Subject: Re: Oracle indemnifies PostgreSQL on its patents
Date: 2007-04-02 17:06:18
Message-ID: 200704021706.l32H6Id03814@momjian.us
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Jeroen T. Vermeulen wrote:
> On Sun, April 1, 2007 01:32, Tom Lane wrote:
>
> > The idea of OIN is to have a large patent pool that can be
> > counter-asserted against anyone who doesn't want to play nice.
> > Mutual assured destruction in the patent sphere, if you will.
>
> And from the participants' point of view, I suppose the big attraction
> must be that they do away with a threat to their patents. If you have a
> patent that matches what some open project (not worth suing) has been
> doing for the past few years, then anyone else you might want to sue about
> the patent could point to that project and say "if you have a valid
> patent, why didn't you say something when they infringed it?"

You can be as selective as you want about enforcing patents ---
copyright/trademark enforcement does require consistent enforcement.

--
Bruce Momjian <bruce(at)momjian(dot)us> http://momjian.us
EnterpriseDB http://www.enterprisedb.com

+ If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +

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