Defensive Patent License: Troll Proofed. Innovation Protected.

Today the Defensive Patent License is officially released.   It is designed to bring free software ideas to the patent arena by encouraging patent owners to declare themselves “defensive,” and share their patents with others that have declared themselves defensive.

defensive-patent-license-logo

This way a large number of patents can be used to help create new products and services without fear of being sued.  As more organizations join in becoming defensive, then the set of patents gets larger and the incentive to become defensive grows.

The Internet Archive hosted the “birthday party” as the license was refined, and declared itself defensive.  Brewster Kahle helped spur this generation of the idea by collaborating with lawyers who worked for years to get this to happen.

In celebration of this release, today John Gilmore is dedicating an important portfolio of patents from Pixel Qi to be defensive.   Pixel Qi was a company run by Mary Lou Jepsen of OLPC fame, and partially funded by Brewster Kahle and John Gilmore.

Please consider joining in by declaring your organization defensive, whether you have patents or not.  The Internet Archive has declared itself defensive to support this effort.