Are these competing efforts? Are they compatible with each other? Do the projects have any relationship, positive or negative?
> Under the LOT Agreement, every company that participates grants a portfolio-wide license to the other participants, but the license becomes effective ONLY when the participant transfers one or more patents to an entity other than another LOT Network participant, and ONLY for the patent(s) actually transferred.
LOT protects the patents from ever being used by trolls, but still allows LOT members to earn royalties from their patents from EVERYONE who uses it until the LOT license is triggered.
> With these patents under the DPL, anyone can license them royalty-free as long as they license their own patents (and commit to licensing future patents) under the same terms—even if they don't have any patents at all.
DPL gives you access to lots of patents for free, but you can only earn licensing fees from entities that have non-DPL licensed patents (or haven't committed to licensing future patents as DPL?).
I suspect that both license agreements can be be offered. DPL seems aimed at incentivizing free access to patents, especially for smaller companies. LOT seems targeted at preventing patents from ever being acquired by trolls. I am not clear on if DPL provides much future-proofing against sale to trolls.)
I haven't looked at LOT in detail, but I suspect they're complementary approaches, and compatible in the sense that an organization could make both commitments.
Several months ago EFF published a guide to alternative patent license arrangements that mentions both, see https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/05/hacking-patent-system-...
Google has a comparison table at http://www.google.com/patents/licensing/comparison/ that ought be updated to reflect DPL as actually used now.
So DPL-licensed patents can never be used offensively in the future, but wouldn't they also greatly reduce the inventor's chances of ever making any money with their patent?
Large corporations will just use your patent for free, because their own patents are held by separate shell companies, so they are "part of the DPL network" by default.
And if you can't make any money with your patent, why make a patent? It's costly and complicated. Might as well just publicly disclose the invention (in a legally acceptable way), and the result will be the same as filing a patent under DPL.
Maybe, maybe not. If the inventor wants to make money by implementing their invention, and also benefit from the ideas other people have and implement which are similar, then this would help them. If they also happen to believe that exerting most software patents are akin to extortion, and they have no interest in it, then no also.
> And if you can't make any money with your patent, why make a patent? It's costly and complicated. Might as well just publicly disclose the invention (in a legally acceptable way), and the result will be the same as filing a patent under DPL.
It's generally less costly to patent something than defend a patent suit based on prior art. For example, see the podcast patent fiasco. Plenty of prior art, millions of dollars to defend.
The broader landscape of IP is a more complex story, but when it comes to software patents specifically, they are clearly harming innovation far more than helping it. Software is well-protected enough by copyrights and trademarks.
The only reason they are called trolls is that there was a libel suit around calling them patent terrorists.