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Comment by surajrmal | Hacker News Reader

Google has an open pledge to not litigate open source uses of its patents: https://www.google.com/patents/opnpledge/pledge

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Meanwhile, fly.io is not open source. Some of their software is, but not all of it. Same likely holds for the SaaS you're thinking of starting.

What does a "open pledge" like that realistically mean, in case they someday broke that pledge? Would the court-case 100% surely get thrown out? Am I legally protected because of this pledge?

Just look at their litigation record. They have been around for long enough to have a meaningful track record.

That doesn't mean things won't change in the future.

Their track record in other places has shown a significant decline (perhaps related to DoubleClick completing their reverse-acquisition of them).

That's my take on the death of don't be evil. Doubleclick was the worst kind of company and the merger with google seems to have diluted enough evil into google that google's immune system failed to kill it.

> Just look at their litigation record.

I guess if one looks at those, it'll look like they won't sue you?

But my hypothetical case is what about if they do sue you, does this actually protect you, or not? Does a "pledge" have enough meaning that it could change the outcome in a court case?

Yes.

The patents page (https://www.google.com/patents/opnpledge/patents/) does not include the macaroon patent. Maybe they forgot to update it?

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