[okfn-discuss] Making a technology public domain (copyleft for science and products)?

Rufus Pollock rufus.pollock at okfn.org
Thu Jan 8 18:50:27 UTC 2009


On Mon, Jan 5, 2009 at 2:48 PM, Lucy <lucy at magnificentrevolution.org> wrote:
> Magnificent Revolution us bicycles to generate electricity which we use to
> educate about the environment and run film and music events.
> www.magnificentrevolution.org

Sounds great.

> We are now at the stage where we have a number of creative ideas which could
> have design rights or patents applied to them.
>
> Instead we want to ake sure these remain as "prior art" for anyone to use
> and improve.  Our strategy for doing this is to continue adding the
> technical and design information up on our "new" website via our diy page or
> through our blogs online therefor making the information public domain and
> unpatentable.  However this does not stop anyone improving upon the idea,
> patenting this improvement, and in the process blocking avenues of future
> development should they desire.

That is indeed true and would be rather unfortunate!

> I'd be very interested in talking to you more about the the best way to
> approach a copyleft strategy where the technology can be improved upon by
> others who are then forced to continue a copy left approach whether this be
> through creative commons or some other route.

Very understanable. In theory you could apply the 'copyleft' or
'sharealike' approach for patents and design rights (and this has been
thought about in the past, see e.g. [1] written by the founder of
Autodesk). However, as you are no doubt aware,  the 'problem' with
patents for the putative copylefter is that they are costly to obtain.

Design rights are rather simpler and cheaper: an unregistered design
right can be had for nothing (and lasts for 3-10 years), and
registering a design with the UKIPO costs £60 (though there is all the
hassle of preparing documents etc etc) [2][3].

Given the costs of a patent, if you are looking to obtain some monpoly
right to use to enforce a copyleft/sharealike approach (and to prevent
the risk of exclusion in the future) it is probably simpler to utilize
a combination of copyright and design rights. From [2]:

> Design rights exist independently of copyright, while copyright may protect documents detailing the design as well as any artistic or literary work incorporated within the finished product, the design right focuses more on the shape, configuration and construction of a product.

If you need a license to do this I suggest you use the CC by-sa
license for the copyrightable items and mod this to also apply to
design rights by adding a rider such as (NB: IANAL etc)1:

"The license granted in relation to the 'Work' should be read broadly
to relate not only to copyright but also to all other IP rights
present including, for example, any design rights."

Hope this helps, and let us know if you have any further questions or queries.

Regards,

Rufus

[1]:<http://www.fourmilab.ch/autofile/www/chapter2_105.html>
[2]:<http://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/protect/p15_design_rights>
[3]:<http://www.ipo.gov.uk/types/design/d-applying.htm>


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