[Discuss] Publish OSHW with CC0?

Emilio Velis contacto at emiliovelis.com
Wed Nov 5 18:00:28 UTC 2014


Most importantly, to open records up and to convince national and regional
patent offices to search in our OSHW database (whether by good terms, or
through intense annoyance by means of trumped patents). I would see it as
service similar to WIPO's IPC (http://www.wipo.int/classifications/ipc/en/).
I don't think Google would say no if we ask them to add our "open patents"
to their patent search engine.

On 5 November 2014 11:32, Matt Maier <blueback09 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Yeah, it seems like the only plausible legal hook for OSHW (at least in
> the near future) is to organize active reviews of pending patents and then
> gather up and submit prior art to block anyone trying to patent a
> previously published OSHW design.
>
> But, as we've said before, nobody's been able to point to any cases of the
> community being damaged by the patenting of an OSHW design. It stands to
> reason that the probability will increase as the community grows, but it's
> not a problem yet.
>
> Also, patent law is not as internationally homogenous as copyright law, so
> any legal hook on patents would take a lot more work to clone in different
> countries.
>
> That being said, it could be argued that the state of patent law is
> actually more inherently conductive to Open Source Hardware than copyright
> law is to Open Source Software. The key thing that hardware law lacks is a
> hook to enforce virality or "stickiness," but that's really only important
> to Free/Libre stuff; it's less important to Open Source stuff.
>
> http://freedomdefined.org/OSHW
> "Open source hardware is hardware whose design is made publicly available
> so that anyone can study, modify, distribute, make, and sell the design or
> hardware based on that design. The hardware's source, the design from which
> it is made, is available in the preferred format for making modifications
> to it. Ideally, open source hardware uses readily-available components and
> materials, standard processes, open infrastructure, unrestricted content,
> and open-source design tools to maximize the ability of individuals to make
> and use hardware. Open source hardware gives people the freedom to control
> their technology while sharing knowledge and encouraging commerce through
> the open exchange of designs"
>
> "The design" is already well handled by existing licenses. "The hardware"
> is already basically legally exempt. Since the creator has NO automatic
> protection for the hardware they create (the opposite of copyright) they
> CAN'T stop anyone from "studying, modifying, distributing, making and
> selling" the hardware. The only way to obtain the legal right to interfere
> with anyone doing any of those activities is to get a patent, which takes
> years, costs tens of thousands of dollars, and only works in one country.
> Oh, and it only applies to that one specific thing in the drawings. A
> patent is useless if someone figures out another way to do the same thing,
> or a dozen different ways, which is a core competency of the OSHW community.
>
> Additionally, if someone wants to "enforce" virality, they can go a long
> way towards doing that simply by designing their hardware to comply with
> the OSHW definition. If they use only open source tools to design it, and
> use only commodity components, and make it modular, etc then the hardware
> will be perfectly suited to sharing and will require extensive redesign
> before it's worth mass producing. Just look at the difference between the
> 3D printer Dremel choose https://3dprinter.dremel.com/3d-printer-benefits
> and the Lulzbot Taz 4
> https://www.lulzbot.com/products/lulzbot-taz-4-3d-printer
>
> Free/Libre hardware is the thing that is probably not possible, at least
> not legally. Open Source hardware is already pretty strong simply because
> it's so hard to get the legal right to restrict the hardware, and the
> rights are so limited (at least compared to copyright).
>
> One wrinkle that applies to a subset of the OSHW community is export
> control. Since some technologies are deemed too dangerous to allow sharing,
> they are automatically saddled with legal restrictions. So, in a sense, if
> you create a technology which is export controlled, no citizen of another
> country is allowed to do any of the things in the OSHW definition without
> extra cost and paperwork, and not at all in the case of certain countries.
> However, nothing changes for citizens of the same country; they can still
> treat the hardware as Open Source among themselves.
>
> On Wed, Nov 5, 2014 at 8:12 AM, alicia <amgibb at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> For what it's worth, we did have a discussion around this point involving
>> lawyers from the EFF. The blog post of what was recommended that day lives
>> here:
>> http://www.oshwa.org/2013/12/05/open-hardware-legal-meetup-nyu-nov-11/
>> It was very much centered around fitting within the legal system that
>> already exists.
>>
>> What Andrew infers is true, they are willing to help remove a stupid
>> patent, for example, but don't necessarily think on oshw legal matters for
>> us.
>>
>> Alicia
>>
>>
>>
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