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Unread 19-04-2012, 16:38
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Re: TI and future Jaguars

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tristan Lall View Post
These notices probably won't be effective. American courts recognize the validity of terms of use imposed by a website upon its users, but are unlikely to give much weight to a third party (e.g. you) imposing terms. (In other words, posting this notice here probably won't hurt you, but neither will it help much. It might have an adverse effect if you imply something here that is contradicted by terms found elsewhere, and someone argues that they relied on your statements here.)

In patent terms, your declaration that this "now belongs to everyone and anyone" is pretty much ineffective. If someone takes what's been discussed here, adds something novel to it, and patents it, your declaration doesn't do any good. And if they don't add anything, then this thread represents prior art, and their claim is defeatable, declaration or not. You can't bind someone else with a unilateral declaration.

Similarly with copyright, you can't tell people that the GPL applies to what they publish on ChiefDelphi. All posts on ChiefDelphi should be assumed to be copyrighted by their authors.1 You may be able to assert fair use or some other prerogative, but that depends on the circumstances of what you plan to do with it. Certainly don't expect that you could incorporate others' posts into the documentation that you distribute with the product. If you want to bind people to some licence, you have to have an agreement with them. It's not your forum, so you can't impose terms of use on the users.

1 It's possible for a post to be ineligible for copyright, but that's rare with any substantial content.
Thanks,

To be clear even if I can only speak for myself as I've given away a bunch of things in here, actually several of them quite specific to form and function, I'm quite fine with it more addressing my contribution to the project than anyone else at the moment.

If someone wants to try for a design patent using a modification of this idea then I wish them the best of luck. They don't have nearly enough to satisfy those requirements from what I've seen. I'd specifically like to avoid anyone claiming a utility patent on the ideas. I hope that I've conveyed that I have reduced my own copyright towards the community attempting to make this item. So that in effect I am agreeing not to pop up one day with a demand if you are a member of the community that supports this. Otherwise I perceive that by describing my ideas in such detail I risk making the idea less and less doable for the community.

I've had people steal stuff from me before in forums on the Internet, then run down and patent them, and usually what happens is sooner or later I show up with the posts showing the dates as prior art and they decide they'll not enforce against me if I would kindly avoid taking apart their patent. It's surprising actually how many times their attorneys tell me that no one at all comes forward and challenges the patent during the initial time frames. So you end up with these patents that cover basically the entire kitchen and the sink that some patent examiner doesn't think all the way through. Someone may have a patent that directly incorporates something from my publicly listed idea that a patent examiner completely ignored (probably lack of experience in something exceedingly technical). Those would be those patents the patent trolls love...you know...it's a patent that means their IP is 'all cell phones ever created' because it's far too broad.

However, you bring up a good point perhaps we should consider moving the venue for the legal implications beyond myself and make the other forum private behind a login that indicates acceptance of this license. I should think beyond that we would need to trade paper.

More precisely beyond the legal specifics I was concerned that someone might utterly object to the licensing principal itself with regards to the project. Not just my legal hackery . So let's hope that they are seeing this very public exchange as fair warning as to possible legal implications of moving to our own site.

Any specific concerns you can offer with the use of GPL in this regard?

To be additionally clear, I am not suggesting I'm using anyone's posts in my documentation. I am suggesting that I worry that someone else could do that.

Last edited by techhelpbb : 19-04-2012 at 17:11.
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