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There are a few exceptions in US law (e.g., provisions in the Defense Production Act) that can allow a patent owner to be compelled to license their IP. IANAL b

by giaour 3y ago

There are a few exceptions in US law (e.g., provisions in the Defense Production Act) that can allow a patent owner to be compelled to license their IP. IANAL but I believe this generally requires an officially declared emergency of some kind.

_delirium 3y ago
There are additional exceptions short of a declared emergency, but rarely invoked. So in practice I agree this is unlikely to happen with e-ink displays. But for legal nerds I'll elaborate anyway. Some exceptions are obviously inapplicable here, e.g. special rules for plant varieties [1] and nuclear energy [2]. The one most likely to apply to e-ink displays is that, under the Bayh-Dole act, if an invention was funded by government grants, and the patent holder fails to make it widely available, the government has so-called "march-in rights" to license it to third parties themselves. However this has never been successfully used. Wikipedia summarizes: "Though this right is, in theory, quite powerful, it has not proven so in terms of its practical application" [3]. [1] Perhaps because it's controversial to allow plant varieties to be patented in the first place, the statute for them has an explicit compulsory license clause (see the last subsection): https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/7/chapter-57/subchapter-II/part-D https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/7/chapter-57/subchap... [2] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/2183 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/2183 [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayh%E2%80%93Dole_Act#Petitions_for_march-in_rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayh%E2%80%93Dole_Act#Petition...
sjs382 3y ago
Yeah, I initially threw in some caveats but removed them for brevity and because they don't really apply to the topic at hand (eink). I mean, someone can also compel you to license your IP using a hammer.

by giaour 3y ago

_delirium 3y ago

There are additional exceptions short of a declared emergency, but rarely invoked. So in practice I agree this is unlikely to happen with e-ink displays. But for legal nerds I'll elaborate anyway. Some exceptions are obviously inapplicable here, e.g. special rules for plant varieties [1] and nuclear energy [2]. The one most likely to apply to e-ink displays is that, under the Bayh-Dole act, if an invention was funded by government grants, and the patent holder fails to make it widely available, the government has so-called "march-in rights" to license it to third parties themselves. However this has never been successfully used. Wikipedia summarizes: "Though this right is, in theory, quite powerful, it has not proven so in terms of its practical application" [3]. [1] Perhaps because it's controversial to allow plant varieties to be patented in the first place, the statute for them has an explicit compulsory license clause (see the last subsection): https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/7/chapter-57/subchapter-II/part-D https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/7/chapter-57/subchap... [2] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/2183 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/2183 [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayh%E2%80%93Dole_Act#Petitions_for_march-in_rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayh%E2%80%93Dole_Act#Petition...

sjs382 3y ago

Yeah, I initially threw in some caveats but removed them for brevity and because they don't really apply to the topic at hand (eink). I mean, someone can also compel you to license your IP using a hammer.