[Discuss] Legal Meetup Nov. 11th in NYC

Thu Oct 24 15:27:30 UTC 2013

Thanks, Alicia!

On Thu, Oct 24, 2013 at 10:27 AM, alicia <amgibb at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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
>> Commercial Property Law | Secured Lending
>> James House, Mere Park, Dedmere Road, Marlow, Bucks SL7 1FJ
>> +44 (0) 1628 470003 (phone) |  +44 (0) 7970 835001 (mobile)
>> mailto:andrew.katz at moorcrofts.com
>> www.moorcrofts.com<http://www.moorcrofts.com/>
>> Partners - Adrian Phillips, Andrew Katz, Theresa Hunter, Craig Havard
>> Registered in England & Wales OC 311818
>> Regulated and authorised by the Solicitors Regulation Authority
>> "Partner" means a member of Moorcrofts LLP
>> THIS EMAIL IS CONFIDENTIAL. IF YOU ARE NOT THE INTENDED RECIPIENT, PLEASE
>> LET US KNOW.
>> We store email addresses and the names of addressees to assist with
>> future correspondence.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> 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
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> discuss mailing list
>> discuss at lists.oshwa.org<mailto:discuss at lists.oshwa.org>
>> http://lists.oshwa.org/listinfo/discuss
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> discuss mailing list
>> discuss at lists.oshwa.org<mailto:discuss at lists.oshwa.org>
>> http://lists.oshwa.org/listinfo/discuss
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> discuss mailing list
>> discuss at lists.oshwa.org<mailto:discuss at lists.oshwa.org>
>> http://lists.oshwa.org/listinfo/discuss
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> discuss mailing list
>> discuss at lists.oshwa.org<mailto:discuss at lists.oshwa.org>
>> http://lists.oshwa.org/listinfo/discuss
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> discuss mailing list
>> discuss at lists.oshwa.org<mailto:discuss at lists.oshwa.org>
>> http://lists.oshwa.org/listinfo/discuss
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> J. Simmons, President
>> Mach 30: Foundation for Space Development
>> http://mach30.org<http://mach30.org/>
>> [http://mach30online.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/facebook.png]<
>> https://www.facebook.com/Mach30> [
>> http://mach30online.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/twitter.png] <
>> http://twitter.com/mach_30>  [
>> http://mach30online.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/google-plus-new-16px.png]
>> <
>> https://plus.google.com/u/0/b/104373960473278544446/104373960473278544446/posts
>> >
>> ~ ad astra per civitatem ~
>> to the stars through community
>> _______________________________________________
>> discuss mailing list
>> discuss at lists.oshwa.org<mailto:discuss at lists.oshwa.org>
>> http://lists.oshwa.org/listinfo/discuss
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> discuss mailing list
>> discuss at lists.oshwa.org
>> http://lists.oshwa.org/listinfo/discuss
>>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> discuss mailing list
> discuss at lists.oshwa.org
> http://lists.oshwa.org/listinfo/discuss
>
>

-- 
J. Simmons, President
Mach 30: Foundation for Space Development
http://mach30.org
<https://www.facebook.com/Mach30>  <http://twitter.com/mach_30>
<https://plus.google.com/u/0/b/104373960473278544446/104373960473278544446/posts>
*~ ad astra per civitatem ~
*to the stars through community
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.oshwa.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20131024/e7f52022/attachment-0001.html>