I don’t think the vast majority of people are going to have anything to worry about.
If they make it like the React patent - which to my understanding is that you give up the right to use it if you sue them.
How many people using React/GraphQL are going to be suing Facebook? I mean, really?
Maybe if you are some new startup with some super duper secret thing going on, then yea perhaps it doesn’t make sense to use it, but I don’t think there is much to worry about for a lot of people.
There is a lot of FUD going around and making people jump on the bandwagon shouting “OMG Facebook are going to destroy us all with their sneaky ways” - which when you step back and think about it doesn’t raelly make that much sense. They are just protecting the work that their employees have done.
And quite frankly, I think it’s cowardly that Facebook legal makes Lee Byron – a pillar of the open source community – take these arrows. That cowardice coupled with the delay makes me honestly question their intention. Was GraphQL supposed to be an IP poisoned pill? Probably not. It’s still likely a series of legal gaffes and miscommunication between departments. But my confidence erodes by the day.
The IP machinery for GraphQL started before it was open sourced. They farmed the patent prosecution to an outside law firm (Baker Botts). Having been an IP attorney prosecuting patents for an outside firm, I can tell you that once the IP is handed off, the machinery cranks away with very little contact between firm and client. It’s quite likely that no one inside Facebook thought about the outside patent prosecution when they made the OSS decision.
I don’t think they would be able to - because surely you could prove that you created it long before they did? Otherwise people could go around finding really cool ideas, then patenting them and suing the original creators. That is akin to theft and I can’t see any court ruling in their favour.
From my understanding of trademarks here in the UK, you don’t actually need to get something trademarked for it to be a trademark - as soon as you start using something as a trademark it becomes a trademark. I believe it’s the same with copyrights. (I’m not sure how things apply to patents tho - but I’m pretty sure it couldn’t be used as a mechanism to infringe existing rights held by others.)
I find it hard to believe that is the reason they opt for patents. If they wanted to include that couldn’t they simply include it as a clause of the license/terms like we see in so many other TOUs?
I’m obviously not Ben, but I think he is referring to all the news articles/blog posts etc.
Whatever the circumstances, I think many people feel it is their responsibility to sort it out and sort it out fast. Which I think is completely understandable.
In the meantime I feel sorry for people like Ben and Bruce who have spent a large amount of their time and energy on related products. I hope this is all sorted out for them more than anything else.
Your IP understanding is dead on! IP laws are similar in most western countries from various treaties. Once a brand puts a mark into commerce, a “common law trademark” exists. The owner gains further rights from an official trademark.
Copyright rights attach as soon as it’s reduced to “a tangible medium of expression.” Copyright registration is required for a lawsuit and gives a few additional statutory remedies, but it largely unnecessary and simply a formality to litigation.
Patents protect ideas, and as compared to trademark and copyright infringement, the requirements are quite rigorous.
I’m one of the guys writing the blogs and news articles (Dennis Walsh)
I’m an Absinthe user and enormously appreciative of Ben and Bruce’s work. They’ve helped me with my specific questions too. To the extent I’ve caused them undue angst and wasted time, my sincere apologies. My goal was to shine light on a very real situation with enough intensity that it wouldn’t be repeated elsewhere. I wasn’t sure anyone would even listen to me – I have no ready made public platform, so I was shouting into the dark. Perhaps I shouted too loudly.
I do think it’s an important issue, and I understand the need to make enough noise that people actually listen. It does seem to have at least begun the kind of response process that we need.
I’m hearing two replies to this. The first basically boils down to “The MIT license broadly has this issue, but everyone (businesses) seems OK with that, so I guess it’s OK here too”. Unsatisfactory in a technical sense, but it at least solves the problem of businesses avoiding React / GraphQL.
Related to this is the second reply, which basically points out that the patent issues at work here are universally true of a troubling percentage of the open source software we use, even those under the MIT license. React may not be totally out of the water, but at least it’s in the same doomed water as the rest of the open source world. Again, unsatisfying, but frankly the whole world software patent is wildly unsatisfying.
Personally, I’m unsure. Hopefully there are more developments.
@benwilson512 I haven’t seen anyone mention anything about your book, could this affect your book even if everything is still ok with Absinthe in the end?
IANAL but I can’t imagine how. A hypothetical GraphQL patent could potentially cover GraphQL implementations, but I can’t see how it would cover someone merely writing about how to use one.
Yeah I’m not a lawyer either which is why I asked (figured if so then
pragmatic would have already mentioned something). I just thought that it
is direct income related to their IP rather than indirect income via a
business using that IP. Seemed like an easier case to me, but that’s good
to hear that it’s not true and I don’t know anything about the law
