[Discuss] Legal Meetup Nov. 11th in NYC

Thu Oct 24 14:27:23 UTC 2013

I will check what the room status is for wifi and call in and see what we
can do for hangouts.

Alicia

On Thu, Oct 24, 2013 at 2:02 AM, Andrew Katz <Andrew.Katz at moorcrofts.com>wrote:

> Hi Alicia
>
> I would also love to be involved by hangout etc. I'm legal counsel for
> MariaDB foundation, and have been intimately involved in setting it up for
> 501c6 status, having initially investigated 501c3. 501c3 an be fairly
> problematic, as I'm sure you are aware.
>
> I'd also like to look at this from an international perspective, as there
> are a number of options for widening the reach to other jurisdictions,
> notably the European Union.
>
> Best wishes
>
>
> Andrew
>
>
>
> Andrew Katz
> Moorcrofts LLP
> Corporate Law | Technology Law | Commercial Law | Employment Law
> Employee Incentivisation & Share Schemes | Intellectual Property Law
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>
> On 23 Oct 2013, at 21:43, J. Simmons <jrs at mach30.org<mailto:jrs at mach30.org>>
> wrote:
>
> Alicia,
>
> It has been our pleasure to help where we can in the 501c3 process.  I am
> just happy we could help.
>
> I would love to join you for the legal meetup, but I am not sure I could
> swing the travel expenses to come out to NYC for a 1 day meeting.  Any
> chance you all could look into setting up a teleconference link (Google+
> Hangout, Skype, etc) I could use to join in?  If not, I would be more than
> happy to write down some of the questions that have been kicking around my
> head and Mach 30 discussions.
>
>  -J
>
>
> On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 4:08 PM, alicia <amgibb at gmail.com<mailto:
> amgibb at gmail.com>> wrote:
> Mach 30 has already been a great help to us with the process of getting
> 501c3 status. I hope J. Simmons can maybe make it to the meeting?! If not,
> we'd love to bring up some questions on the topic and come back with some
> useful answers.
>
> Alicia
>
>
> On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 1:25 PM, Matt Maier <blueback09 at gmail.com<mailto:
> blueback09 at gmail.com>> wrote:
> Alicia,
> That's definitely an important set of questions :)
> Mach 30 is working on the same thing with respect to Export Control (EC),
> which applies to a subset of open hardware projects. At the moment, the
> Export Control Task Force (ECTF) is putting together an "EZ" guide to
> export control compliance specifically tailored to open hardware
> developers. We should see how much synergy we can get out of combining our
> legal research. The subjects might be different, but explaining the topics
> in a way that makes them accessible to all developers will probably be the
> same.
>
> There are already a lot of parallels between the two projects. In both
> cases we need to find some actual lawyers who understand and are interested
> in the issue. We both want to condense legal opinions into a GO/NO-GO kind
> of guide for average developers. Also, we both already figure that some
> kind of tiered approach is best. Additionally, since both projects would
> greatly benefit from some sort of cooperation, or at least conversation,
> with the relevant agencies (USPTO, DDTC, etc) we might be able to help each
> other out with insider contacts.
>
> Cheers,
> Matt
>
> On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 12:04 PM, alicia <amgibb at gmail.com<mailto:
> amgibb at gmail.com>> wrote:
> Great questions Matt.
>
> My goals are:
> 1) Figure out the best way forward to partner with lawyers who want to
> help us, which is more or less purely business relations.
> 2) Obtain more education to pass along to our community backed by experts
> in the patent process for what will formally work and what won't work for
> oshw / laundry labels and work toward the layering solution.
> 3) Find out what OSHWA should be focusing on in terms of formal legal
> stuff, we heard a bit about this from Michael Weinberg at the Summit, we
> want to keep that conversation going to know if for example, should OSHWA
> be interfacing with the USPTO? These folks would know the people to talk to
> there, or these folks would tell us if it's a waste of time from their
> experiences with the USPTO. But a formal opinion of how we go about calming
> fears surrounding the USPTO would be great to disseminate to the community.
>
> I would say this discussion will be 2 fold in broadness of what open
> hardware devs can do to protect themselves, then hone into the specifics on
> correctly branding partially open projects and figure out how to best move
> forward with a solution. In terms of your prior art question, legally prior
> art is enough on it's own, we're not trying to change that. But confirming
> advice on how to formally address it within the community would be nice as
> OSHWA's top question we get asked is people fearing their oshw prior art
> won't be found by the USPTO. So if it eventually happens where someone's
> oshw gets patented, and from this meeting we have created a partnership
> with EFF and Julie can help that person fight the overlooking of prior art
> and patent, that would be a great outcome. I guess another goal is to get
> the legal backing that makes people more and more comfortable publishing
> their work as open source. (So far, giving people a calming manatee<
> http://calmingmanatee.com/> hasn't comforted enough people into oshw, so
> we need another tactic.)
>
> Marino,
>
> Great advice for posting prior art!
>
> So far we don't charge for the logo or OSHWA branded oshw mostly because
> we don't want to turn into the USB problem  20 years down the road :).
> Gatekeepers by definition are not open, so OSHWA tries to stay away from
> that. Self labeling and self policing has worked very well so far, as you
> and Marco point out, but I don't know that the entire community would want
> to change that to include a payment for bad behavior.
>
> What I have heard from the community is that inventors want more options.
> Options to release some things open and some closed and have a clear
> direction about how to post that correctly. Options like the creative
> commons has options, but the issue we come up from a legal stand point is
> that these would all need to be in the form of social contracts. As I
> understand it, a license would only actually holdup in court if you had a
> patent to license your thing from, since oshw doesn't include obtaining
> patents, we can't really make licenses. Enter creative lawyering? Anyway,
> that last bit was maybe a bit of a tangent from your email there.
>
> Cheers,
> Alicia
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 10:37 AM, Matt Maier <blueback09 at gmail.com<mailto:
> blueback09 at gmail.com>> wrote:
> Alicia,
>
> Regarding the discussion points, what is the goal(s) those questions are
> working towards? Are you trying to obtain some kind of protection for OSHW
> work aside from the prior art exception or are you trying to confirm that
> the prior art exception is enough on its own?
>
> Do the discussion points reference open hardware developers in general, or
> OSHW branded projects in particular?
>
> Marino,
>
> The Thing Tracker could work as a central point for searching open
> hardware projects http://thingtracker.net/
>
> If someone's project isn't actually open, then why would they pay to
> certify it as open? If it's not open then it shouldn't be certified as open
> EXPECIALLY if they offer money.
>
> -Matt
>
> On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 3:22 AM, Marketply <contact at marketply.org<mailto:
> contact at marketply.org>> wrote:
> I'd love to attend.
>
> And will add thoughts now as well.
>
> Defensive publishing tags:
> Make it as easy as possible for the USPTO to find open hardware. Use tags.
> Build a distributed, official database for the tags. With backups hosted by
> various other supporters (websites) of open technology. Or a BitTorrent
> type of strategy where all info from open hardware is distributed and
> contains tags.
>
>
> Publish often:
> Defensively publish to the USPTO, quite often, and each time include a
> link to the hardware info in database.
>
>
> Include examiners:
> Build something that functions like the ip.com system<
> http://ip.com/publish/offensive-publishing.html>. According to their
> other page<https://publish.ip.com/>:
>
> " Assure that your publication can be found and cited by patent examiners
> around the world by publishing to IP.com<http://IP.com>'s publishing
> services"
>
> If they can get patent examiners to browse their ip.com<http://ip.com/>
> systems, we can get examiners to browse an open hardware system.
>
>
> Super easy certifying:
> Have people self-certify themselves, as suggested by Marco Perry<
> http://lists.oshwa.org/pipermail/discuss/2013-February/000207.html>.
> Except have them be sponsored by people in the community, and to pay only
> if the community calls BS on their hardware being open. Otherwise it's free
> to certify, and this includes for companies.
>
> Each time BS is called on a person or company, their fine to pay
> increases. And their license is immediately void for the hardware that
> failed in being open.
>
> An annual crowdfunding plus any foundation grants helps to cover costs.
>
>
> Allow video as description:
> It's getting easier to webcam your activities<
> http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1590403900/soloshot-go-film-yourself-automatically>
> and to add expandable info<
> https://make-dev.mozillalabs.com/en-US/projects/interactive-biography>
> into video.
>
> Videos<https://webmaker.org/> can say so much more than words, and you
> see the action and nuances of creating something. Soon we'll have cameras
> that can swivel to follow what your hands do. Or people can open-source
> make it!
>
> 😃,
>
> Marino Hernandez
> (just a founder of Marketply<http://www.marketply.org/>)
> 203-429-4205<tel:203-429-4205>
>
>
> On October 23, 2013 at 1:42 AM Alicia Gibb <pip at nycresistor.com<mailto:
> pip at nycresistor.com>> wrote:
>
> Hi all,
> OSHWA is having a small meeting in NYC on the NYU campus with Julie
> Samuels, the  Mark Cuban Chair to Eliminate Stupid Patents branch of the
> EFF,<https://www.eff.org/about/staff/julie-samuels> and Jason Schultz, a
> professor at NYU who has researched many aspects of defensive patents<
> http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2298593>. They are
> both interested in helping the oshw movement.
>
> Unfortunately, the room we're meeting in is small, so we are having a few
> OSHWA board reps present and can only bring in 5 or 6 folks. We wanted to
> open the meeting to any folks on this list eager to discuss lawyer-y stuff.
> The meeting will be on Nov. 11th from around 10am-2pm though I haven't
> gotten exact times yet. Please let me know if you have interest in
> attending, and if you can't attend but have thoughts please send those my
> way too.
>
> Below is a summary of points we'll be talking about though the direction
> may shift during as the day takes course. From the questions we get at
> OSHWA, we feel the community would benefit from further legal knowledge in
> these areas.
>
> Background:
> Oshw is typically innovated faster than the patent system can keep up
> with, and the patent system is too expensive for small businesses. This was
> much of the basis that the current oshw definition was founded on.
>
> Discussion points:
> 1) Fears of someone patenting pre-existing oshw work and the USPTO fails
> to find the prior art. (Hasn’t happened yet to our knowledge.) Includes
> fears that the social contract as definition won’t be enough to hold up in
> court. Similar case studies could help?
>
> 2) Is there another area we could put aspects of oshw that is not in the
> realm of a patent, but rather User Agreement or Terms of Service?
>
> 3) Continue the discussion / brain storm implementation of the layering of
> openness / laundry label from the discussion list<
> http://lists.oshwa.org/pipermail/discuss/2013-February/thread.html>.
>
>
> Thanks,
> Alicia Gibb
>
>
>
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