Why not be realistic? You can't extended your copyrights to control intellectual property outside of your copyright grant. There is *no* question that a patent is outside the ownership grant of a copyright:
****************************************************************** 17 USC 102. Subject matter of copyright. (b) In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work. ******************************************************************* Never in his wildest dreams will a GPL licensor control software patents he *doesn't* own with a copyright grant that he does own: "The misuse defense prevents copyright holders from leveraging their limited monopoly to allow them control of areas outside the monopoly. See Lasercomb, 911 F.2d 970 at 976-77; see also Religious Tech. Ctr. v. Lerma, No. 95-1107A, 1996 WL 633131, at *11 (E.D. Va. Oct. 4, 1996) (listing circumstances which indicate improper leverage)."; A&M RECORDS, INC. v. NAPSTER, INC., 239 F.3d 1004 (9th Cir. 2001). "Misuse of copyright applies where the copyright owner tries to extend the copyright beyond its intended reach, thereby augmenting the physical scope of copyright protection. It typically arises in situations where it is alleged that the copyright owner projected his unique rights in a work onto other, unrelated products or services."; Religious Tech. Ctr. v. Lerma, No. 95-1107A, (E.D. Va. 1996). The great debate on the software blogs about TomTom violating the GPL is sheer nonsense of the same caliber as Eben Moglen's nonsense about a copyright license not being a contract. Sincerely, Rjack :) _______________________________________________ gnu-misc-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss
