Date: Mon, 19 May 2014 16:47:09 +0200
From: Adam Back <adam@cypherspace.org>
To: bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net
Message-ID: <20140519144709.GA29574@netbook.cypherspace.org>
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Subject: [Bitcoin-development] patents...
Precedence: list

someone recently wrote (not pointing fingers, nor demanding a spirited
defense from that person, its a generic comment):
>   PS: the device has patents pending

btw about patents, I wonder if people who feel the need to do that, would
you consider putting those patents into like a linux foundation defensive
pool?

I imagine a number of other bitcoin companies have patented things, but if
you think ahead a little bit, or look at prior ecash history, patents held
by individuals or companies can be outright dangerous.  

We saw this in the past eg the digicash patents after the company went
bankrupt were sold by the investor to some random large company that parked
it in its huge pile of patents, didnt use it, and prevented anyone else from
using it - stalling Chaum dependent payment innovation for perhaps 5 years
until the thing expired, and a Chaum patent expiry party was held.

Just some food for thought.

hmm Yes and this topic now is more than a bit non dev related.  Sorry about
that.  There seems to be no convenient mailing list format for non-dev stuff
or I would Cc and set Reply-To for example?  (Web forums somewhat suck IMO). 

Adam