[Discuss] FAQ on preventing others from claiming ownership of open-source hardware?

[Hanspeter Portner]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On 10.09.2014 20:44, Jeffrey Warren wrote:
> some folks file for a provisional patent and never follow through,
> but at least get it on the USPTO's radar. Isn't it less than $100
> do so so, and doesn't have very strict formatting requirements?

A defensive publication seems the way to go here.

Depending on your hardware project, it may make more sense to
get a paper published in a scientific journal and/or conference
proceedings that match your topic instead of an IP database. Those are
much more likely to show up in searches than Github et al. ;-) and
potentially a lot more people that may actually be interested in your
work may get to know about it, too.

e.g. I've been to the one international conference my project fits in,
got the condensed (4pp) project description published in the
conference proceedings and this shows up in all scientific search
engines ever since. Such a defensive publication is timestamped
(ISBN/ISSN number), so one could actually even prove prior-art...

> 
> 
> On Wed, Sep 10, 2014 at 2:40 PM, David A. Mellis
> <dmellis at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> Hi all,
>> 
>> One concern that seems to come up (e.g. in Pablo’s recent email)
>> is that someone will try to patent, or otherwise claim ownership
>> of someone else’s open-source hardware design. Potentially, this
>> could include trying to prevent the original developer of the
>> hardware from continuing their work. It seems like it would be
>> good to address this issue in our FAQ ( 
>> http://www.oshwa.org/faq/) — but I’m not quite sure what to say
>> about it.
>> 
>> So, what suggestions do you all have for people that are worried
>> about their open-source hardware project getting patented or
>> otherwise claimed by a third-party?
>> 
>> I’ll try to synthesize people’s suggestions into a new FAQ.
>> 
>> David _______________________________________________ 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
> 

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v2
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=HSWk
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----