Open Stack

On Thu, Dec 05, 2013 at 09:52:48AM -0600, Alice King wrote:
> But...  Maybe including the public domain requirement is too complex and it
> doesn't line up all that well with the patent issue risk.    Maybe instead
> the "rule" would be that the Foundation Executive Director would have
> discretion to determine for government funded research institutions whether
> the burden to the contributing institution of clearing a patent license was
> disproportionate to the risk to the community of a accepting the
> contribution, and in those cases authorize the use of a modified Corporate
> CLA that included the sentence from the ECL limiting the patent license to
> things created by the same author.  
> 
> This would require a case-by case analysis, but the JHUAPL situation
> indicates that a case-by-case analysis might be needed to make sure the
> "rule" was applied sensibly.  There is no compelling reason to grant an
> exception to JHUAPL since they don't have the left hand/right hand problem
> that Batelle has.

Sure, maybe this is a better approach -- I feel less strongly about my
slippery-slope concern today. :)

I assume the Board would need to give Jonathan that discretion?

- Richard