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Hi Tjeerd.<br>
Great questions.<br>
Not easy questions.<br>
Following, 2 ways.<br>
<br>
#####<br>
# 1/ Proposal to participate to the possible improvement of the
current state:<br>
#####<br>
There are indeed many people from this pleasant peaceful list who
might give you some great feedbacks, however can you also ask to
lawyers from the licence you target to use for your next (or
current) things made with atoms under terms and conditions that will
make those things under openness spirit and practices.<br>
For example, if you target to follow the FSF advices, and chose to
use the GNU-GPL for a pedagogic document explaining the way a thing
made with atoms could be done, and why, and how (etc, with science
reasoning, ...), then you might ask your questions to lawyers
people belonging to FSF. Mr Richard Stallman, or FSF lawyer, will be
pleased to explain you many things.<br>
You can do the same for the other licences that are listed both by
FSF, or by OSHWA, and that are said being working well for "Free
Libre Open Source Documentation for Hardware": ask to CC lawyers;
ask to APL lawyer; ask to SOLDERPAD Licence lawyer; ask to TAPR-OHL
lawyer; ask to CERN-OHL lawyer (my preference).<br>
Why am I answering this to you ?<br>
Because, your questions are on the table for many many many people
around the globe. And the current answers do not completely fill a
full satisfaction. <br>
Then, "we" (as people who have been swimming into the FLOS hardware
pool), could try to improve this by asking to lawyers from those
licences, which are said as working to put openness into "things
made with atoms and build by humans or by robots made by humans or
by robots made by robots made by humans" (currently called O"pen
Hardware"). Asking to those people, it will generate one more
additional ticketing request: the more there are requests to improve
the current state, the more people will consider there is as a huge
demand to answer to, and the more it will start a move. The move
will might be: <br>
<br>
* 1. Better communication about those questions in web pages of:<br>
** a) major actors like: OSHWA, Apache Foundation, Mozilla
Foundation, CC, CERN, TAPR, <br>
** b) massive internet information sources (wikipedia, ...)<br>
<br>
* 2. Attempt to improve the current tools like:<br>
** a) create an official public publication tools for all nations
(or per nations) for patentable things, which will allow to publish
things publicly in an official way accepted by courts of many places
around the world (My recommendation *is* to place this tools *in a
neutral place* as is the CERN or UNESCO, but not in one specific
country).<br>
** b) generate an improvement of current OHL licences (SOLDERPAD,
TAPR, CERN OHLs), which will allow:<br>
*** i) you to choose your preferable FLOS licence for the
documentation<br>
*** ii) irrigate the downstream manufacturings with the continuity
of the documentation terms and conditions delivery<br>
*** iii) you to choose additional options (like CC does) which are
answering to current requests of some openness people<br>
**** - continuity of documentation terms and conditions onto
hardware modifications downstream<br>
**** - reciprocity for commercial use (financing of a common pool
and makers in an equilibrium retribution/contribution)<br>
**** - respect of local cultures and practices above the copyright
supremacy (which unfortunately, across copyleft, spreads a sort of
"mono-way-to-view" questions of authorship culture in places where
those questions are solved by other ways than copyright written
texts)<br>
**** - restriction of use for non dangerous usages (some people
would really like to restrict usage for peaceful things).<br>
<br>
---<br>
<br>
####<br>
# 2. Some begin of answers<br>
####<br>
<blockquote type="cite">Not only document your product in terms of
product drawings/design<br>
files, but also as the expression of an idea, in the way a
research<br>
article describes ideas. </blockquote>
Yep: more precisely, a pedagogic document would be better.<br>
Or, transform the "thing made with atoms", not as a functional
thing, but as an artistic thing, and publish it under the Licence
Art Libre.<br>
Unfortunately, if one part of your artistic thing, is patentable,
then you will fall into the patent swimming pool.<br>
Choosing a thing as being not inventive, assembling things available
in the market in a different way that it could exist, for an
artistic purpose, for artistic places, might be a good idea.<br>
Should we consider "Open Hardware" as a collective way of love art
to transform the world, to conserve human and biosphere ? Open
Hardware: an global artistic project ?<br>
<blockquote type="cite">If I'm not mistaken, such a description can
then serve as prior art in<br>
case someone else applies for a patent? </blockquote>
Not really: if there is something which is patentable inside your
pedagogic document, then it could have already patented in the past,
or will be in the future.<br>
<blockquote type="cite">And how then can we point patent attourneys
to the existence of it (it<br>
would be best if they find it when they do their search for prior
art<br>
thing)?<br>
</blockquote>
That is one of the key. The day we will find a neutral place where
we will deliver a service which will officially publicly publish
(ie: as requested by any judge, by any court) the root information
(ie: equivalent of source code and object code) about the production
of a thing made with atoms, then we will reach a big new step: it
will give us a solid canvas, flooding the patent database around the
world.<br>
The service defensive.publication.org does this for software
patentable things.<br>
<blockquote type="cite">If there pop up ways of "enforcing" someone
using my invention (can<br>
this be done by putting the description of the invention under a
OHL?<br>
I think TAPR OHL aims at this?) or designs to open up their
hardware<br>
too, it would be great as this is what many seek to do as far as I<br>
read this list.<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
CERN-OHL and TAPR-OHL discussion lists, will certainty give you some
great returns (across the discussion list of CERN-OHL and TAPR-OHL).<br>
<br>
However, both OHLs licences, are useful to use, when you have the
*complete* rights above the thing you publish. That means, when a
part of your hardware is patentable, then, to get the complete
right, you should get patent rights on this part. That also means,
you should have (as an evidence) the legal ability to publish, which
means, your complete ID must be clearly given: judge and court, will
request this as a basis. That also means, the judge will also
firstly check under which law the publication has to be seen:
copyright ? or patent ?<br>
<br>
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