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>Unless a company decides to sue Facebook (or accuse its products), the termination trigger has no actual effect. What if Facebook actually breaches your paten

>Unless a company decides to sue Facebook (or accuse its products), the termination trigger has no actual effect. What if Facebook actually breaches your patents? What if they sue you? You can't counter-claim if your tech is based on React, because you'd lose the grants.

yablak 9y ago
This. The article basically reverses its own argument with this statement. The real purpose of Facebook's license is to stop any sufficiently large company (i.e., any company with the wherewithal to sue Facebook) from using their technology.
EduardoBautista 9y ago
If they sue you nothing different happens than if you don’t use React at all.
sheetjs 9y ago
> What if Facebook actually breaches your patents? This is the crux of the problem. I've heard others try to explain this by arguing that "If FB decides to breach your patent, you're SOL anyway. They can out-lawyer you", which is an absolutely horrible defense of the license. > What if they sue you? You can't counter-claim if your tech is based on React, because you'd lose the grants. Just to be clear, the license does not terminate in this case (assuming that the patent in question is unrelated to React): "if Facebook or any of its subsidiaries or corporate affiliates files a lawsuit alleging patent infringement against you in the first instance, and you respond by filing a patent infringement counterclaim in that lawsuit against that party that is unrelated to the Software, the license granted hereunder will not terminate under section (i) of this paragraph due to such counterclaim."
JimDabell 9y ago
Also: What if a company you are in a legal dispute with gets acquired by Facebook? This is a threat even if you don't expect any conflict with Facebook.
- gregmac 9y ago
  Likewise this could be a concern if a company -- especially a big one -- is looking to acquire yours.
cheapsteak 9y ago
Facebook explicitly states that if they sue you, you can respond with a counter claim and not lose the patent grant From their FAQ [1]: > [Q:] Does the additional patent grant in the Facebook BSD+Patents license terminate if Facebook sues me for patent infringement first, and then I respond with a patent counterclaim against Facebook? > [A:] No, unless your patent counterclaim is related to Facebook's software licensed under the Facebook BSD+Patents license. [1] - https://code.facebook.com/pages/850928938376556 https://code.facebook.com/pages/850928938376556
- JoshMnem 9y ago
  Facebook's suing of your company is different from Facebook's infringing of your patents or acquiring a company that is infringing your patents. It isn't just React -- most of their repos contain the PATENTS file.
  - cheapsteak 9y ago
    I was responding to the parent's claim that you can't respond to Facebook suing you by counterclaims or you'd lose the grant
kybernetikos 9y ago
People don't seem to realise how trivial react is. If you want to sue Facebook for infringing one of your patents, reworking some of your web apps to avoid any of their patents will probably be among the least of your expenses. And unless they have monster patents that would hurt you even if you weren't using React, you can probably swap it out very easily without even changing the API.

yablak 9y ago

This. The article basically reverses its own argument with this statement. The real purpose of Facebook's license is to stop any sufficiently large company (i.e., any company with the wherewithal to sue Facebook) from using their technology.

EduardoBautista 9y ago

If they sue you nothing different happens than if you don’t use React at all.

sheetjs 9y ago

> What if Facebook actually breaches your patents? This is the crux of the problem. I've heard others try to explain this by arguing that "If FB decides to breach your patent, you're SOL anyway. They can out-lawyer you", which is an absolutely horrible defense of the license. > What if they sue you? You can't counter-claim if your tech is based on React, because you'd lose the grants. Just to be clear, the license does not terminate in this case (assuming that the patent in question is unrelated to React): "if Facebook or any of its subsidiaries or corporate affiliates files a lawsuit alleging patent infringement against you in the first instance, and you respond by filing a patent infringement counterclaim in that lawsuit against that party that is unrelated to the Software, the license granted hereunder will not terminate under section (i) of this paragraph due to such counterclaim."

JimDabell 9y ago

Also: What if a company you are in a legal dispute with gets acquired by Facebook? This is a threat even if you don't expect any conflict with Facebook.

gregmac 9y ago
Likewise this could be a concern if a company -- especially a big one -- is looking to acquire yours.

cheapsteak 9y ago

Facebook explicitly states that if they sue you, you can respond with a counter claim and not lose the patent grant From their FAQ [1]: > [Q:] Does the additional patent grant in the Facebook BSD+Patents license terminate if Facebook sues me for patent infringement first, and then I respond with a patent counterclaim against Facebook? > [A:] No, unless your patent counterclaim is related to Facebook's software licensed under the Facebook BSD+Patents license. [1] - https://code.facebook.com/pages/850928938376556 https://code.facebook.com/pages/850928938376556

JoshMnem 9y ago
Facebook's suing of your company is different from Facebook's infringing of your patents or acquiring a company that is infringing your patents. It isn't just React -- most of their repos contain the PATENTS file.
- cheapsteak 9y ago
  I was responding to the parent's claim that you can't respond to Facebook suing you by counterclaims or you'd lose the grant

kybernetikos 9y ago

People don't seem to realise how trivial react is. If you want to sue Facebook for infringing one of your patents, reworking some of your web apps to avoid any of their patents will probably be among the least of your expenses. And unless they have monster patents that would hurt you even if you weren't using React, you can probably swap it out very easily without even changing the API.