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Comment by BukhariH | Hacker News Reader

Can someone please share what patents cover react?

Because if they're revoking patents that don't cover react then there should be no problem to continue using react right?

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If I understand that license correctly, it is not 'patents that cover react', it is 'any facebook patent, present or future'. Also as explained in the article, it is also about my patents if I have any, in case facebook tries violating them. Far wider than 'react patents'.

I understand that but here's the scenario I'm talking about:

- I use React for my startup's dashboard

- I sue facebook for violating my startup's patent without removing my react dashboard first

Now, what patents can facebook use to counter sue me that they couldn't sue me with anyway had I not used react?

Facebook won't counter sue you. They don't have to. You just lose your right to use React, due to its license.

I believe you still have a right to use it under copyright law since the license isn't terminated, it's just that potentially you may be infringing some patents, but so far nobody has actually pointed out what those patents would be, so I think it's a valid question.

That's not true: https://code.facebook.com/pages/850928938376556

Facebook can't take away your rights to use React under the BSD license, no matter what you do.

You only lose the patent license, not the copyright license. So it is important to know if facebook actually owns patents covering react and if those patents cover other frameworks as well (e.g. because they cover all virtual DOMs).

As far as is known: None. There don't seem to be any patents.

The problem is if you ever found facebook infringing on one of your patents, you could not sue them -- your react patent grant would be rescinded.

This is not a behavior of free software.

This is the same BS repeated on HN almost every day now. You can sue FB anytime, whether you use React or not. You do not give them any kind of permission to use YOUR patents just by using React.

The only thing that happens when you sue FB over patents is that your patent grant covering React is gone, reducing your license to a regular BSD license. If you use Angular, vue or whatnot open source products covered by licenses without patents grants, there is NO guarantee whatsoever that this piece of software is free from patents of Google, FB, Oracle your favorite patent troll from around the corner. Yet people seem more fine with using software which comes without any patent grants whatsoever, and declare that hell would come over us if the FB patent grant on the software would be revoked.

Btw, clauses that revoke patent grants when you sue a party are pretty regular and present in the Apache License v2 and the (L)GPLv3, no one is crying about it and says that those licenses are not open source anymore. The GPLv3 goes even further and invalidates your right to use the software at all if you start sueing people who created that software.

Gosh, I am so happy to live in the EU where we do not have to deal with this kind of BS and can just use the best technology that solves the problem.

Wait... I live in the EU aswell (UK).

What do you mean by:

"Gosh, I am so happy to live in the EU where we do not have to deal with this kind of BS and can just use the best technology that solves the problem."

Software Patenting theoretically does not exist in the EU[1]. But in practice I guess it's up to the interpretation of the law by national courts.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patents_under_the_Eur...

You're responding to something I never claimed.

My only point was Free Software (in spirit) does not take away (patent)rights once they've been granted.

I agree that it is frustrating to have to constantly push back against the hysteria around the license, however, I think parent was correct in their initial assertion - "The problem is if you ever found facebook infringing on one of your patents, you could not sue them -- your react patent grant would be rescinded.".

While rescinding the patent grant does not remove your license to use the product, I've seen some lawyers argue that Facebook's license is weaker than a "regular BSD license". The argument goes that a "regular BSD license" has an implicit patent grant that is stronger than what the React license offers through its explicit patent grant. Thus, you are not reverting to a "regular BSD license", you are reverting to a "regular BSD license MINUS the implicit patent grant".

(http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Implicit_patent_licence#USA)

(IANAL so I have no particular understanding whether this is a good legal argument, but assuming it is, it seems like a strong counterpoint).

Exactly! And if the day came where this because an issue, for 1/10th the cost of actually retaining a lawyer and reasonably going after Facebook for a patent, you could rewrite your app in something else.

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