pooling patents for progress and protection

[Peter Palfrader]

On Sun, 29 Dec 2002, Rik van Riel wrote:

> 3) Each participant can use all of the patents in the pool for
>    defensive purposes, when faced with a patent infringement lawsuit.
>    I'm not yet sure what legal construction can be used to achieve this
>    effect, but it is important that all the participants can rely on
>    the whole patent pool to defend themselves against patent infringement,
>    using the standard "but you're infringing on my patents, too" counter
>    suit trick that almost always leads to a cross-licensing agreement.

This would mean that every member would need the right to sublicense
every patent from the pool.  As this can easily be abused I'm not sure
his point is a good idea.

(are there other defensive purposes besides cross licensing?)

					yours,
					peter
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