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RE: What is an Open Value Network?

in #ovn • 7 years ago

A bit late to the table but

Like the case with Makerbot, if a company wants to take an open source idea and patent the technology, there isn't much anybody can do about it.

Isn't there a prerequisite for a patent application that there is no prior invention like it?

7 years ago in #ovn by
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     7 years ago 

    Well if it's open source, there's not really anyone that is patenting anything. But a company could take an open source invention and patent it. Generally, a company wouldn't do that and create their own closed sourced version.

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       7 years ago 

      But a company could take an open source invention and patent it.

      But how is this possible if it is already existing? It's not the companies invention so they shouldn't be able to patent it!

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         7 years ago 

        A patent gives its owner the right to exclude others from
        making, using, and selling the claimed invention. Thus,
        patent rights give a patentee great control over who uses
        his invention. In contrast, the basic idea behind distributing
        software under an Open Source license is that anyone
        should be able to view and use the “source code” of the
        computer program and modify it for his own purposes.
        (The source code is the human readable version of the
        software.) The author of the program must make the source
        code available to others. Anyone can modify the source
        code without obtaining permission from the author. A
        business decision to distribute software under an Open
        Source license affects how the author of the software may
        be able to use his patent rights, but does not affect whether
        he can or should apply for patent protection. A business
        decision to release software under an open source license
        (or to incorporate such software in a proprietary product)
        may grant certain patent licenses to people who receive the
        software, and the patent owner cannot control who these
        receivers will be.

        https://www.fenwick.com/FenwickDocuments/Patent_Rights.pdf

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