The patent commons consists of all patented software which has been made available to the open source community. For software to be considered to be in the commons the patent owner must guarantee that developers will not be sued for infringement, though there may be some restrictions on the use of the patented code.
The concept was first given substance by Red Hat in 2001 when it published its Patent Promise. The Patent Commons Project was launched on November 15, 2005 by the Open Source Development Labs (OSDL). The core of the project is an online patent commons reference library aggregating and documenting information about patent-related pledges and other legal solutions directed at the open-source software community.
Read more about Patent Commons: See Also
Famous quotes containing the words patent and/or commons:
“This is the patent age of new inventions
For killing bodies, and for saving souls,
All propagated with the best intentions.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“[I]n Great-Britain it is said that their constitution relies on the house of commons for honesty, and the lords for wisdom; which would be a rational reliance if honesty were to be bought with money, and if wisdom were hereditary.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)