Re: Mozilla and Patents

On Tuesday, April 10, 2012 9:19:50 AM UTC-7, Gerv wrote:
> On 09/04/12 21:29, Daniel Cater wrote:
> > 1. Does Mozilla hold any patents that it inherited / acquired from Netscape / AOL?
> > 2. Does Mozilla hold any patents that it inherited / acquired from elsewhere?
> > 3. Does Mozilla hold any patents that it filed for itself?
> > 4. Does Mozilla have a licence for any Netscape / AOL patents?
> > 5. Does Mozilla have a licence for any other patents?
> > 6. Does Mozilla have a patent policy?
> > 7. Does Mozilla have a section on patents in employees' contracts?
> > 8. Does this sale and licence of AOL patents to Microsoft have any meaningful impact on Mozilla?
> 
> Hi Daniel,
> 
> As you will understand, for legal reasons it's not normally wise to 
> discuss or speculate on patent-related matters except with one's 
> attorney. The recently-adopted Debian Patent Policy[0] says:
> 
> "Patent risks affect the entire community. If you are concerned about a 
> specific patent, please do not keep it to yourself — notify legal counsel.
> 
> All communication related to specific patent risk should be directed to 
> patents <at> debian.org, which is maintained under the rules of 
> attorney-client privilege. The risk will be evaluated and any necessary 
> response will be made directly to affected parties."
> 
> In other words: "it's not smart to talk about patent risks in public".
> 
> Some of your questions are matters of fact and probably public record; 
> but I'm not sure I have answers off the top of my head and even if I 
> did, I'd still want to consult before giving them