Re: The GPL and Patents: ROFL

[Hyman Rosen]

On 8/13/2010 4:59 PM, RJack wrote:
> The GPLv2&3 licenses are no defense whatsoever to patent enforcement.
> Moglen's patent gibberish is just that -- gibberish.

That's false. The GPL says <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>
   Each contributor grants you a non-exclusive, worldwide,
   royalty-free patent license under the contributor's
   essential patent claims, to make, use, sell, offer for
   sale, import and otherwise run, modify and propagate the
   contents of its contributor version.

Anyone distributing code under the GPL and then suing for patents
embodied in the distributed code would be guilty of promissory
estoppel.

> Any code that implements a patent idea is not copyrightable
> within the practice area of the patent.

You are extremely confused. Code is copyrightable whether or not
it embodies patented ideas. If you believe otherwise, you should
quote the law or case that demonstrates your thesis.

> Lexmark

Lexmark is an excellent illustration of the principle that if
there is only one (natural) way to do something, then that can't
be copyrighted because there is no creative aspect involved. But
this has nothing to do with your claim that code which embodies
a patent can't be copyrighted.

> The GPL is a *copyright* license it cannot apply to source code
> that is not eligible for copyright in the context of patents.

There is no such thing as "source code that is not eligible for
copyright in the context of patents".

> LMAO.

It is quite clear by now that anti-GPL cranks do not only L with
their A, but they also use their A instead of their B for thinking,
and as a source from which to pull ideas.