React License – Additional Grant of Patent Rights
github.com
github.com
The 3-clause BSD license is retained in its original form [1] and makes no reference to the patent grant. Therefore, I believe you could fork the project and remove the patent grant in your fork. You would then lose the patent protection from Facebook, but they also could not revoke your rights to your fork of React.
That said, if your use of React somehow violates one of Facebook's patents, you're in trouble. The original version of React would be protected by the additional patent grant, but your fork wouldn't be.
I don't think Facebook is acting maliciously; I just think they're trying to provide a means to balance their (perceived) need to protect their patent portfolio vs. their desire to release OSS. If they start suing people that are using their open-source projects, it's going to undermine the (rather good) reputation the company has for releasing quality OSS.
edit: corrected; DPL is not Twitter's license. Twitter's is the "Innovator's Patent Agreement", which is even more broad in its definition of "defensive" lawsuits:
(a) against an Entity that has filed, maintained, threatened, or voluntarily participated in a patent infringement lawsuit against Assignee or any of Assignee’s users, affiliates, customers, suppliers, or distributors;
(b) against an Entity that has filed, maintained, or voluntarily participated in a patent infringement lawsuit against another in the past ten years, so long as the Entity has not instituted the patent infringement lawsuit defensively in response to a patent litigation threat against the Entity; or
(c) otherwise to deter a patent litigation threat against Assignee or Assignee’s users, affiliates, customers, suppliers, or distributors.
The patent grant is automatically lost if you argue "any right in any patent claim of Facebook is invalid or unenforceable". Notably, this applies to all patent suits, whether or not you're right, even if you're the person being sued, rather than you vice versa.
In effect, Facebook can revoke the patent grant at will just by bringing an onerous patent lawsuit - you can either agree to their arbitrary terms (e.g. never to use React again and pay X billion), or you can argue their patent rights are invalid or unenforcable and lose the patent grant. That onerous suit might be over the very patents this grant licenses; it really doesn't matter.
At best, this is a promise not to consider past patent infringement, since you'll receive warning that your license to React patents revoked.
The fact that suing over usage of OSS would damage their reputation is irrelevant: even without a patent grant it would be perceived as extremely untrustworthy to sue over submarine patents. The patent grant doesn't really change that (it might make the commentary even more snarky should such an event occur, but that's about all). Also, realize that if this ever does occur, it's unlikely to be in a world that looks at Facebook like it does today. This is typically something you'd expect of a company in decline: they're not after good PR at that point, but after extracting maximal rents from others. And of course it wouldn't need to be Facebook itself that filed the lawsuits; they might sell off that intellectual property to some patent troll and claim (somewhat reasonably, I might add) that it's not really their responsibility what happens later on. Actual events have repeatedly shown that large firms have no qualms in making somewhat shady IP deals if that can give them a competitive advantage (e.g. the lawsuits surrounding android). In short: I don't think bad PR is a very effective disincentive for a patent lawsuit.
The same applies to Facebook's other open source projects (e.g. immutable-js), so one must also avoid any libraries that depend on those projects (even if it's a dependency of a dependency of a...)
This seems to conflict with the spirit of OSS, since the grant doesn't apply to modified versions of React (i.e., trying to fork React could result in a lawsuit). Again, IANAL, so I might be misreading this.
This would make me quite hesitant about using React for any project of significant size (especially for a large enterprise). I saw a post earlier about Netflix using React -- I wonder if they know about this.
So if you change React to add some functionality that infringes on a patent Facebook holds you don't automatically get a license to that patent.
that means if facebook sues you for any reason, they can also take away react if you try to fight it!!!!!!! Which raises the question: Can software truly be open source if there is a company to gain by controlling it?
Basically this avoids Facebook being unable to defend themselves if you claim you have a patent that covers React.
It's really a more asymmetrical retaliation clause than the one from the Apache 2.0 (or GPLv3), which are only about the related work.
(IANAL, so maybe I'm wrong about the interpretation)
For anyone who makes any claim. The legal definition of claim is that you must assert you own all or part of the software. If Facebook makes the claim against you, the only defense you need is their patent license grant and the software license.
You can defend yourself, however you can not do so by saying anything bad about Facebook, you are basically restricted to say you do not infringe. I'd say it qualifies as a legal trojan horse.
https://github.com/drcode/webfui https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeI5-D7SQe8
If I found myself in a position where Facebook took away my access to React.js and to the patented ideas, does this help me at all? E.g. could I use this as a base and implement the immutable virtual dom myself, or looking into alternatives like mithril?
[0] https://twitter.com/floydophone/status/427160179616927744
(Some edits)
Prior art is probably only going to help in the case that you're already embroiled in a legal battle over infringement. That or if a USPTO patent review were to occur (e.g. [1]). But it'd be best to not be a potential infringer at the same time you contest a Facebook patent, unless you want FB's legal team gunning for you in retaliation.
That said, I think there are going to be a lot of developers who simply don't know about and/or ignore the existence of this patent and go merrily about their lives anyway.
[1] http://appleinsider.com/articles/12/12/19/apple-pinch-to-zoo...
You don't need a lawyer to tell you being unable to sue Facebook for patent infringement even if unrelated to the licensed software, while Facebook is free to sue you for infringing other patents without you being able to challenge such patents, is an unfair and dangerous license.
And counting on Facebook's good will is as foolish as betting your livelihood on a Microsoft "promise" not to sue you.
Edit: fixed typo.
Perhaps someone with more legal experience could point out the precedent?
For those who may want other options to React after reading this, mithril is small & has JS DOM:
https://lhorie.github.io/mithril/getting-started.html
How it's rendered:
http://lhorie.github.io/mithril/mithril.render.html
Differences with React:
What is the issue with the React patent grant, exactly? (edit: reread it again. seems it applies to all Facebook patents. I had thought it was like the Opus license, I was wrong)
nkohari put it best: That said, if your use of React somehow violates one of Facebook's patents, you're in trouble. The original version of React would be protected by the additional patent grant, but your fork wouldn't be.
As nkohari goes on to state (which I agree with), they're probably just trying to protect their patent portfolio and participate in OSS.
I, however, don't want to both even being anywhere close to an idea of compromising F/OSS, as there are lots and lots of options out there that are well within and have no additional legalese that could be misconstrued (whether positively or negatively).
The existence of prior art is also interesting especially in the case with Immutable.js which is basically a JavaScript implementation of common data structures and algorithms.
Exactly which scenarios is this supposed to cover?
Even so, the idea that you could sign away your rights to make a particular kind of argument in court sure seems like a crazy and nefarious way of hacking the legal system. But what do I know.
In effect, the license is revocable by facebook, without cause. In short; it's not a patent grant; it's merely an agreement not to sue over past infringements.
It's overly broad, but your interpretation isn't correct.
Edit: I'm wrong. https://twitter.com/SlexAxton/status/562318547674619904
The license granted hereunder will terminate, automatically and without notice,
for anyone that makes any claim (including by filing any lawsuit, assertion or
other action) alleging (a) direct, indirect, or contributory infringement or
inducement to infringe any patent: (i) by Facebook or any of its subsidiaries or
affiliates, whether or not such claim is related to the Software,
Contrary to the stereotypes about "viral" licensing, the GPLv3's patent grant seems to be very narrowly tailored. It says that if you redistribute GPL'd code while "knowingly relying" on patent rights that you own or were granted, then you must arrange to grant those specific patent rights to the recipients. It's equitable, in the sense that the rights you have to forego are the same ones that were granted to you: only those that would necessarily be infringed by using and distributing the software.
Facebook's terms are similar to the extent that they cover patent claims "related to the Software." But the real difference (to my layman's eyes) is in the application to other patents. You're not allowed to enforce any patent claims against Facebook or its affiliates, whether or not those patents have anything to do with React. And in the reverse direction, if Facebook accuses you of infringing a patent of any kind, you have to forfeit the right to challenge the patent's validity.
That's taking a relationship that's already heavily skewed towards big companies with huge patent arsenals, and making it even more lopsided.
The license granted hereunder will terminate, automatically and without notice, for anyone that makes any claim (including by filing any lawsuit, assertion or other action) alleging ... (b) that any right in any patent claim of Facebook is invalid or unenforceable.
Doesn't that mean that if Facebook sues you for patent infringement in something else you did (possibly unrelated to React) and you disagree, they can take away your licence to use React? In other words, Facebook could arbitrarily shut down your use of React by filing a spurious patent lawsuit against you. And if your use of React was critical to your business and Facebook didn't like the look of your business, that could be dangerous.
But there is an asymmetry here. Facebook offers the open source code license and you use it fairly and per the terms. Facebook then hypothetically steals your company's patented Crown Jewels. When you send them a C&D they retaliate by revoking your license. So now they've kicked your ass twice and you've done nothing to warrant it. That would not be what I call "fair".
This entire thing is an anti-patent troll measure.