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Comment by tcheard | Hacker News Reader

The MIT license doesn't change anything in this case, because the MIT license doesn't have a patent grant.

This GraphQL situation is different and, arguably, somewhat worse than the ReactJS BSD+Patent license issue.

The problem here is the GraphQL specification doesn't have a patent grant (unlike ReactJS, which does, but people don't like the terms of the grant). And Facebook have filed a patent for GraphQL (https://www.google.com/patents/US9646028) that has some quite broad language.

Due to the patent, and the lack of a patent grant, most GraphQL users likely infringe on Facebook's patents.

Please read: https://medium.com/@dwalsh.sdlr/using-graphql-why-facebook-n...

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I am not a lawyer, but MIT and BSD are thought to have implicit patent grants.[1] It would be completely absurd for a company to argue that they give the public the right to use their software, but "just kidding -- we were secretly withholding the rights to the patents all along so that we could sue you for using our software!" An apparent problem with Facebook's PATENTS file is that it explicitly withdraw the patent license if Facebook decides to infringe on your patents and you speak up about it.

I'm not sure if the author of that article is partially trolling in the attempt to get Facebook's patents terms applied to the entire spec.

The best solution would be to abolish software patents completely.

I think this entire PATENTS situation with Facebook is a good reason why people should prefer Free software that is created and managed by individual developers and independent foundations over "open source" software produced by large companies with legal teams and dubious agendas.

[1] http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Patent_clauses_in_software_licences...

Good point. Wonder how much more frequently we're going to start seeing issues like this.

You could create just as much fear, uncertainty and doubt by pointing to the lack of clarity around the notion of an implicit patent grant.

I don't think that they are the same. If the PATENTS file usage becomes widespread, it would probably impact small startups without legal teams more than anything regarding implicit patent grants would.

>Please read: https://medium.com/@dwalsh.sdlr/using-graphql-why-facebook-n....

That post has text of the patents in question. Please warn if you're linking to text of patents so people don't expose themselves to triple damages.

The topic of willful infringement, while unpleasant, is a real concern for many developers and companies. I don't believe the downvotes are justified for a valid concern.

If you publish something under a MIT license very early, can you still apply for a patent after its practically public domain? I'd say no, but IANAL.

Some lawyers argue that if you publish software under an open source license without an explicit patent grant, that their is an implicit grant with it. As far as I know, this has not been tested in court, but it seems reasonable to me, (not as lawyer).

Sure you can apply. And you might very well get it too. They don't have time to check much at the patent office, mostly standarized IP databases (probably not including your code). And if you get it, it becomes the burden of the others to prove the patent invalid. Bad patents are common, and litigation so expensive that they are a real problem to whoever is affected by them.

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