Or more specifically, private company having monopoly on addressing - with any decoding/encoding between location and mnemonic format - controlled solely by the

Or more specifically, private company having monopoly on addressing - with any decoding/encoding between location and mnemonic format - controlled solely by them is not acceptable. "The algorithm is patented in several countries, preventing anyone from implementing a compatible algorithm or developing anything like it as a competing standard. Notably the patent is not restricted to schemes which use three words, so a hypothetical "what4words" would potentially also violate the patent. The wordlist necessary for encoding/decoding what3words locations is copyrighted, and is stored in an encrypted form in the what3words mobile apps (so decrypting the wordlist would likely trigger "anti-circumvention" laws such as DMCA §1201)." (from https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/What3words https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/What3words )