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Twitter Introduces Innovators Patent Agreement
- Fando 15y agocool. a step in the right direction
- mooneater 15y agoI like the idea. From the agreement, clause 2: 'An assertion of claims of the Patents shall be considered for a “Defensive Purpose” if the claims are asserted .... (c) otherwise to deter a patent litigation threat against Assignee or Assignee’s users, affiliates, customers, suppliers, or distributors.' That part (c) is pretty vague.
- amirmc 15y agoand means that the phrase "offence is the best form of defence" is still applicable.
- Tyrannosaurs 15y agoI think that's a big stretch. I agree that the language is pretty broad (particularly the idea that ayou can use it against someone who has bought action against anyone, not just to defend yourself) but I don't think you could get away with getting your retaliation in early the way it's written.
- hornokplease 15y agoHere's the original post submission on the Twitter Engineering blog: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3853654 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3853654
- paul 15y agoThis is awesome! I'm looking forward to seeing which tech companies sign on.
- zxypoo 15y agoIt's also on Github for comment: https://github.com/twitter/innovators-patent-agreement https://github.com/twitter/innovators-patent-agreement
- zdw 15y agoI wonder if Twitter will retroactively apply this to the "pull to refresh" patent they acquired when they purchased the Tweetie and turned it into the official Twitter client: http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-adv.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&d=PG01&p=1&S1=20100199180.PGNR.&OS=dn/20100199180&RS=DN/20100199180 http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sec...
- isaach 15y agoSee this tweet from Twitter Comms: https://twitter.com/mgrooves/status/192303330876334082 https://twitter.com/mgrooves/status/192303330876334082
- apike 15y agoThey will. From the announcement (http://engineering.twitter.com/2012/04/introducing-innovators-patent-agreement.html http://engineering.twitter.com/2012/04/introducing-innovator...): > We will implement the IPA later this year, and it will apply to all patents issued to our engineers, both past and present.
- rfrey 15y agoWe will implement the IPA later this year, and it will apply to all patents issued to our engineers, which is different than the acquired patent you mention, but at least indicates the intention to make the policy retroactive.
- ceejayoz 15y agoTweetie's developer is indicating this applies to pull-to-refresh: https://twitter.com/lorenb/status/192298232968249344 https://twitter.com/lorenb/status/192298232968249344
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- btn 15y agoThat's not a patent, it's an unreviewed patent application.
- TomGullen 15y agoThe best form of defence is attack, is the language really air tight enough for companies to not use them in attack?
- ntkachov 15y ago'The company will not use the patents in offensive litigation without the permission of the inventors.' Honestly how hard is it to go up to someone and say "Let us troll with this patent and we will cut you in on 20% of the profit". I know quite a few people who would do that deal just to pay for their kids college in the future. I don't see this changing anything except for inventors now getting a cut of the deal.
- harryh 15y agoThat would violate the terms of the agreement: "If Assignee needs to assert any of the Patent claims against any entity for other than a Defensive Purpose, Assignees must obtain prior written permission from all of the Inventors without additional consideration or threat." At which point whoever twitter was suing could claim that they had violated their own agreement so they don't have grounds to sue.
- extension 15y agoAs long as the inventor holds the patent, what stops them from making a new agreement with the assignee that allows non-defensive litigation?
- WiseWeasel 15y agoThe company still holds the patent, and can even sell it, but the inventor maintains veto control over its offensive use.
- raldi 15y agoThe top post in this very thread demonstrates how that protection can be easily bypassed.
- WiseWeasel 15y agoNo, it explains how the purchaser of the patent can get the inventor to go along with their offensive patent lawsuit, which is necessary BECAUSE the inventor maintains veto power. If that weren't the case, the inventor would have no say in the matter.
- mythz 15y agoTwitter is quickly becoming OSS's best role model - imitators take note.
- streptomycin 15y agoThis is sarcasm, right? Twitter is a walled garden.
- Jasber 15y agoI think this is what he was talking about: http://twitter.github.com/ http://twitter.github.com/
- streptomycin 15y agoI'm sure that's what he was talking about, if he wasn't being sarcastic. But there's a difference between releasing a bit of code on the periphery of your walled garden and being a "role model".
- a-priori 15y agoI would never ask a for-profit company to open source their core software if it doesn't meet their business model (sell support, etc.). Here's the thing though: I don't care one bit about how they process tweets internally. However, the "bit of code on the periphery" that Twitter has released is far more interesting to me. Bootstrap lets me prototype web UIs much faster, for example, and who knows? Maybe some day I'll end up using their contributions to MySQL, Cassandra or Mahout. So, if only for purely selfish reasons, I say kudos to them.
- streptomycin 15y agoKudos for the good things they've done, sure. And criticism for the bad things they've done. But "OSS's best role model"? Laughable. That was the post I replied to.
- 15y ago
- monochromatic 15y ago> 2(b) against an Entity that has filed, maintained, or voluntarily participated in a patent infringement lawsuit against another in the past ten years, so long as the Entity has not instituted the patent infringement lawsuit defensively in response to a patent litigation threat against the Entity So it counts as a defensive purpose if they're suing anyone who's filed a patent infringement case in the last decade? That's pretty friggin' broad.
- galenward 15y agoThat's hugely broad. Basically they won't sue startups unless the startups sue them first. I love this approach, but it should also be pointed out that this is a very easy approach for a patent-poor company to take. If you don't have many patents, you aren't going to sue other companies who do have patents and you'd sure like to look like the good guy if you infringe on their patents.
- kfury 15y agoActually, it appears to mean that they won't sue startups unless the startups sued _someone_ about a patent in the last 10 years, unless that suit also qualified as a Defensive suit, which means that the suit is against _another_ company that hasn't sued anyone about a patent in the last 10 years, unless _that_ suit was a Defensive action. Turtles all the way down.
- monochromatic 15y agoIndeed. I wonder if a nonlawyer wrote this contract, because it has some issues.
- adavies42 15y agofrankly i think the recursion is both deliberate and good--if it's written properly (i haven't reasoned through the fine points completely), it partitions the world into two groups: those who've never started a patent fight (against anyone), and those who have. members of the first group can't sue each other without being reclassified into the second group, at which point everyone left in the first group can sue them without being reclassified.
- robterrell 15y agoCan't believe someone at Twitter wrote this. It's riddled with semicolons. (ducks)
- streptomycin 15y agoThis made me laugh because I just realized that the "no semicolons in my Javascript" people are just modern day versions of Kurt Vonnegut: http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/show/17178 http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/show/17178
- freerobby 15y agothis joke deserves more love.
- srl 15y agoI don't usually upvote jokes on HN, but when I do, I provide some actual content in the same post. OT (obviously): This is an example of a facet of humor I find rather difficult to explain. Most comedians pull this trick once or twice per show - the good ones, more often. You take the current topic of conversation, and link it (in a somewhat skewed way) with some previous joke. Somehow, this has an amplifying effect on the old joke, which continues to get stronger as you do it a few more times (to the same target). Anybody know of an explanation / name for this? (Did ... did I kill it?)
- robomartin 15y agoDidn't read the fine print... Does this mean that you will be able to use any Twitter-patented technology at will and not expect to be sued for it?
- ascendant 15y agoNo, I think it means that the patents will never end up in the hands of people that just plan to use them as weapons to extort other companies vs. their actual useful purpose, which is to protect innovators from having their hard work ripped off.
- nilsbunger 15y agoAre you saying you couldn't use any Twitter patents for any purpose yourself? I don't understand what would prevent you from doing so...
- _delirium 15y agoTwitter can still use the patents offensively if the engineer whose name is on the patent agrees. They're just committing not to do so against the will of the inventor.
- jharding 15y agoGlad to see Twitter doing this, it's definitely a step in the right direction. In my opinion what this really needs is the support from another well-known company. If a company like Facebook announced next week that they were adopting the Innovators Patent Agreement, I think that could get the ball rolling and we would start to see many other companies join the cause.
- tibbon 15y agoWhy would a startup not do this (aside from wanting to be a greedy patent troll?)? No seriously, if I have a startup that cares about my employees, is there any real reason to not do this?
- Jasber 15y agoIt might hurt your chances of being acquired if the acquiring company doesn't want the restrictions on the patents (greedy patent troll or not). I could see investors having a problem with this.
- dlitz 15y agoEmployers and investors who have a problem with this are going to have to weigh the cost of these restrictions against the cost of turning away high-value engineers who can afford to be selective about where they work. During the hiring process, lots of employers are already giving candidates verbal assurances that their patents will only be enforced defensively. Now, software engineers have a practical way to demand that they make these assurances binding. Employers who fail to do so will have a much tougher time explaining themselves. I'm probably going to start requiring this of any employers that I work for in the future.
- nilsbunger 15y agoIt's a balance between the benefit of the recruiting/retention edge for making a commitment to your engineering team, vs. the loss in patent value for an acquisition or to stop someone who's really ripping you off later (the latter obviously being a huge gray area).
- dominik 15y agoMaybe for software startups. But for hardware or biotech startups? Licensing patents is oftentimes a startup's business model. And licensing doesn't work if people can use technology without paying (which would be the case with a purely defensive patent).
- bjornsing 15y agoI'd say defensive patents are pretty useless for a startup. The idea is to build a patent portfolio that's so large and diverse that the day some random company sues you, you just happen to have a patent that they themselves are infringing on. You also need the financial resources to pull off that counter threat. Doesn't sound like lean startup to me... A much cheaper defensive measure is to publish your "inventions". There are companies that help you with that, e.g. ip.com.
- myspoonnotyours 15y agoThis is pretty poorly drafted.
- ubervero 15y agoThis thing should be on Docracy
- vog 15y agoWow, I didn't know of Docracy [1] yet. It looks interesting, but doesn't seem to provide version control outside the web interface. From that perspective, GitHub might be a better place for this. [1] http://www.docracy.com/ http://www.docracy.com/
- ForrestN 15y agoIt's a very interesting move. I guess the calculation (apart from real benevolence, which I don't mean to undercut) would be that the good will and good press, affection from idealistic engineers and the resulting hiring and retention advantage, and the effect on the rest of the patent landscape (over which they have no direct control) is worth more than the patents themselves. The thing is, how that plays out depends on whether or not other companies agree to change their behavior. If it's true, as another comment says, that they will allow Apple to use the pull-to-refresh patent, for example, that's some clear leverage lost. If no one else makes similar moves, won't Twitter be at a disadvantage in the context of the "patent wars?" Will the other advantages I listed above still be worth it if the patent landscape doesn't change? Does this effect the value (especially as a potential acquisition target) of Twitter? I don't know enough about their portfolio of patents to know how valuable there patents might be. In any case, it's at least something new-feeling in the story of software patents. Hopefully it will have some positive effects. EDIT: Also, hearing all this talk of "defensive" patent use makes me think about Intellectual Ventures; does that sort of thing count as defensive under this plan?
- amirmc 15y agoThere also a question of the legal aspect of letting other companies infringe for a while and then trying to start litigation against them (e.g if they broke condition 2b). How would courts view this? Or does it not matter?
- Drbble 15y agoSee Intellectual Ventures above. Submarine patent enforcement is scummy, but it's nice to see a weapon used for good occasionally.
- harryh 15y agoYou're too cynical. I think they did it because it's the right thing to do.
- ForrestN 15y ago
- oughton 15y agoMmmmmm IPA
- jasonkolb 15y agoSo what is the difference between this agreement and simply publishing the guts of a patent in a public way that establishes a commercial use date?
- aheilbut 15y agoThis way, they could use a patent covering A as a weapon against another party that is attacking based on an unrelated patent B.
- Drbble 15y agoTwitters version allows defense against trolls like Apple.
- rmc 15y agopublishing the guts of a patent in a public way Aren't all patents publically published for anyone to see? You can see them, you just can't use them. Patents ≠ Trade Secrets.
- Spoom 15y agoA nice idea, but many developers' employment contracts already state that they assign all inventions created during the course of their duties to the company, free and clear. How would this help such a situation?
- harryh 15y agoChange the employment contracts to reference the restricted IPA instead of the free and clear one.
- tucif 15y agoSo, what if you are the inventor of a patent on company A, then you get hired or create company B, which uses your patented inventions on company A? You won't give them permission to sue you..
- Tyrannosaurs 15y agoThey wouldn't be violating under the terms of this agreement - they're granted a perpetual license. But unless I'm misunderstanding you I believe you're missing the point. This is pretty much written with the assumption that engineers wouldn't grant permission to a first strike action whoever it were against and that that's fine. It's turning patents into tools weapons that can only be used for retaliation.
- ry 15y agoWill Google follow suit?
- kwamenum86 15y agoNo company in their right mind should sign this. This throws the baby out with the bathwater. There are actually legitimate uses for patents and if you're working on something non-trivial your company might want to (and might even be obligated to in order to do right by shareholders) use the patent offensively.
- a-priori 15y agoThey still can use it offensively. They just have to get the inventor's permission first.
- kwamenum86 15y agoThanks for the clarification
- luriel 15y ago> There are actually legitimate uses for patents Whatever patents in general have any legitimate uses is at best arguable (see http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/general/intellectual/against.htm http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/general/intellectual/against.h... ), but that software patents are a complete and utter disaster that doesn't benefit anyone other than trolls and lawyers has become quite clear by now.
- orblivion 15y agoSo so I'm clear on this, when they say patents can only be used for defensive purposes, are they saying this will effectively nullify patent law in regard to this particular patent?
- vibrunazo 15y ago> If Assignee needs to assert any of the Patent claims against any entity for other than a Defensive Purpose, Assignees must obtain prior written permission from all of the Inventors without additional consideration or threat. Doesn't this nullify everything else? I would love to believe we live in a world where inventors would stop their patents being used wrongly if they had the power. But I honestly believe these are a very tiny minority. Won't most inventors just agree with the company they work for anyway? There doesn't need to be any explicit threat, but just working for a company probably means that you'll do what's necessary to keep your bosses happy. Won't companies just get a signed consensus from inventors and keep suing anyway? Am I missing something obvious?
- itsnotlupus 15y agoFor one thing, patents can take a long time to be granted. It's not unusual for inventors to have changed employers by the time their patents are granted.
- jleader 15y agoIn my experience, the inventors often are working somewhere else by time a patent gets litigated. In particular, patent trolls usually acquire patents without also acquiring the labs, inventors, etc. that created them.
- linuxhansl 15y agoThis is good. Personally I would rather in a world where every so called "invention" is immediately documented publicly so that from that point on there is prior art and nobody can claim a patent on it. Tipping the balance of offensive to defensive patents will definitely also help.
- mochazebedee 15y agoThis move strikes me as a truce agreement proposed by someone with no sword. How many technology patents does Twitter even HAVE, not counting Loren Brichter's "pull-to-refresh" UI innovation?
- IvanDragoev 15y agoTo protect your idea/product using patents is OK but using them to stop innovations is a dark side. How to define the balance between using patents as weapons and using them to secure investments is the big question. If your innovative project uses something well-known, but adds the essence on top of that, do you have to pay a license for all the bricks you use?
- IvanDragoev 15y agoTo protect your idea/product using patents is OK but using them to stop innovations is a dark side. How to define the balance between using patents as weapons and using them to secure investments is the big question. If your innovative project uses something well-known, but adds the essence on top of that, do you have to pay a license for all the bricks you use?
- dutchbrit 15y agoMight be a step in the right direction, but when can we just ditch all software patents?! (I know - bit of an unrelated comment)
- WiseWeasel 15y agoCould a public company's leadership even adopt such a measure without getting successfully sued by its shareholders? They would be putting liabilities on the company's IP assets, decreasing their market value, which is not in the interest of shareholders. Would it just fly under the radar? I guess the company would have to argue that this allows them to pursue and retain better talent, which might be an easy case...