Protecting Open Innovation
There is a common misconception in public that patents allow people to keep their work from being privatized by corporations, and therefore - even open source people should patent their work in order to assure that it remains open.
OSE does not endorse this viewpoint. If something is published in a public venue - it automatically enters as prior art and becomes unpatentable. A wiki, or any public site with a time stamp, qualifies as a public record - and is sufficient.
So why all the fuss?
The reason is that apparently the USPTO is overwhelmed and they give patents literally to anyone who comes their way.
That doesn't mean that your prior art is no longer valid. It is, but you would have to go through expense to prove it. A letter to the contesntant may do if you are savvy, or you may end up hiring a lawyer. This is not a good thing.
But the bottom line is - any public information remains public for ever. The public cannot unsee a thing.
What about derivatives? Yes, it's an issue. Someone can make a derivative from open source work and patent the derivative work, thus closing off potential development in the patented direction.
That's why the best thing do is to put a viral clause on your license, such as the Share Alike in CC-BY-SA. This coerces any user to make any derivates that they made based on your design - to become public and open - Just Like (hence the Alike). This is the best thing to do.
If you patent something hoping that you protect your work, the effect is not as powerful as the -SA clause. Because if you patent something, and someone makes a derivative based on that patent - they ARE NOT required to share it.
So basically, stay away from the USPTO, an old and broken institution. The only advantage of the USPTO is Defensive Publishing, http://disclosures.linuxdefenders.org/login.jsp?se=true, which makes it easier for the USPTO to acknowledge prior art when determining patent applications. How this works in practice I do not know.
Further, on the issue of closing off development directions. This, in large part, does not apply much to the work of OSE. OSE's route focuses primarily on using existing technology in a holistic or integrated fashion. Therefore, our primary innovation involves product ecosystems, not point technologies. Further, there are many ways to do something, and there exist many time-proven ways of doing things that are relevant, and efficient from the systems design perspective. As a proverbial example - we don't need patented round corners on our tractor, because our multipurpose modular design works sufficiently well and can be used to make many different machines.
http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/Protecting_Open_Innovation
Marcin
