On Tuesday, April 10, 2012 9:19:50 AM UTC-7, Gerv wrote: > On 09/04/12 21:29, Daniel Cater wrote: > > 1. Does Mozilla hold any patents that it inherited / acquired from Netscape > > / AOL? > > 2. Does Mozilla hold any patents that it inherited / acquired from > > elsewhere? > > 3. Does Mozilla hold any patents that it filed for itself? > > 4. Does Mozilla have a licence for any Netscape / AOL patents? > > 5. Does Mozilla have a licence for any other patents? > > 6. Does Mozilla have a patent policy? > > 7. Does Mozilla have a section on patents in employees' contracts? > > 8. Does this sale and licence of AOL patents to Microsoft have any > > meaningful impact on Mozilla? > > Hi Daniel, > > As you will understand, for legal reasons it's not normally wise to > discuss or speculate on patent-related matters except with one's > attorney. The recently-adopted Debian Patent Policy[0] says: > > "Patent risks affect the entire community. If you are concerned about a > specific patent, please do not keep it to yourself — notify legal counsel. > > All communication related to specific patent risk should be directed to > [email protected], which is maintained under the rules of > attorney-client privilege. The risk will be evaluated and any necessary > response will be made directly to affected parties." > > In other words: "it's not smart to talk about patent risks in public". > > Some of your questions are matters of fact and probably public record; > but I'm not sure I have answers off the top of my head and even if I > did, I'd still want to consult before giving them :-) > > Gerv > > [0] http://www.debian.org/legal/patent
Hi Daniel, Some additional information for you. 1. No. 2. No. 3. No. See post regarding patents we applied for and assigned to xiph.org) http://lockshot.wordpress.com/2012/04/17/patent-matters-dont-hate-the-player-hate-the-game/ 4. Yes under the MPL. See more at http://lockshot.wordpress.com/2012/04/12/microsoft-acquisition-of-netscapeaol-patents/ 5. No. Note when we license, use or acquire work product from vendors/consultants there is often a patent license, but I assume you're referring to express patent licenses relative to our products. 6. See post above under #3 which describes our current thinking. 7. Yes, we have a patent assignment provision that is pretty typical. I like the new Twitter IPA proposal, and we'll certainly be discussing adopting that structure once the final terms are worked out. 8. See post referenced #4 above. Hope this answers your questions. thanks for inquiring. /hja _______________________________________________ legal mailing list [email protected] https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/legal
