Patent Non-Assertion Pledge
What changed in version 2.0, and why
Version 1.0 conditioned the pledge on activity carried out “in good faith and in compliance with the open license under which Rowow released the technology (CERN-OHL-S).” That condition had a hole in it, and it was pointed out by a reader of the public draft.
CERN-OHL-S attaches to our design files. It only binds someone who actually uses those files. But patent law requires a patent application to teach the public how to make and use the invention, which means our own published application is a second, complete copy of the recipe that carries no license conditions at all. Someone who works only from the published application, or who reimplements the technology independently, never becomes a CERN-OHL-S licensee. They have no license obligations, so they cannot fail to comply with the license, so under version 1.0 they arguably satisfied the condition by doing nothing and collected the pledge for free. The person who cooperated with us owed share-back. The person who ignored us owed nothing. That is backwards, and it is not what we meant.
The reverse reading was no better. If “in compliance with” was read to require being a licensee at all, then the pledge would fail to protect distributors, integrators, repair shops, and customers who handle our technology without ever opening a design file. Those people should never have to worry about our patents, and version 1.0 left them exposed.
Version 2.0 fixes both by changing the test from who you are to what you publish. If you release your work on this technology openly, the pledge protects you. It does not matter whether you learned it from our files, from our published patent applications, from public literature, or from your own bench work. It also does not matter whether you ever took our license. Nothing else about the pledge has changed: the defensive exception, the reservation for unreleased technology, the carve-out for commercial application patents, and the durability commitments all carry over.
Intent
Rowow LLC files and holds patents on parts of its technology for defensive reasons: to keep the technology open and available to all, and to give our open licenses real force on physical hardware. We do not hold these patents to charge rent or to exclude good-faith users. This pledge states publicly how we will and will not use them.
It sits alongside our open licenses rather than replacing them. CERN-OHL-S governs each released design and carries its own patent grant for that design. This pledge covers everyone that license does not reach, on the same terms, so that both routes into the technology carry the same obligation and the same protection.
Definitions
Pledged Patents are the patents and patent applications on the list published and kept current at rowow.net/patents, together with any continuation, continuation in part, divisional, reissue, substitute, or foreign counterpart of them, and any patent issuing from any of them.
Covered Product is anything you make, use, sell, offer to sell, import, or otherwise transfer that practices a claim of a Pledged Patent.
Open Release means that, for a given Covered Product, the complete design and process documentation sufficient for a skilled person to make and test that product is:
- licensed under CERN-OHL-S, or under a license that requires recipients to release their own modifications and derivative products on equivalent reciprocal terms;
- available free of charge to the general public from a publicly accessible location, in the form you would use yourself to modify it, not a flattened or degraded copy; and
- available no later than the first time you transfer that product to anyone, and kept available while you continue to transfer it and for at least three years after you stop.
Qualifying Implementer is any person or company that has made an Open Release for every Covered Product it makes, uses, sells, offers to sell, imports, or otherwise transfers.
You qualify regardless of where you learned this technology. Working from our design files, from our published patent applications, from public technical literature, from an earlier public release of our material, or from your own independent development does not disqualify you and does not exempt you either. You also qualify regardless of whether you are, were, or ever become a licensee under CERN-OHL-S or any other Rowow license. The test is what you publish, not where you started or what paperwork you signed.
The pledge
For each patent and patent application on the Pledged Patents list, Rowow commits, irrevocably except as conditioned in the one exception below, that it will not assert that patent against a Qualifying Implementer for making, using, selling, offering to sell, importing, or improving a Covered Product for which an Open Release has been made. This commitment extends to that Qualifying Implementer’s customers, distributors, suppliers, and end users in respect of that product.
This is a genuine commitment that users can rely on. It is not conditioned on a user refraining from studying, questioning, or designing around our patents. It is not limited by field of use, industry, geography, or who you are. It is available to our competitors on the same terms as to anyone else.
This draft sets out the commitment we intend to make; it does not make that commitment until a final version is adopted after legal review.
Who does not need to qualify at all
If you are buying, using, operating, servicing, repairing, or reselling a product that Rowow or a Qualifying Implementer lawfully sold, you do not need to do anything and this pledge does not ask anything of you. Those rights come with the product. Nothing here conditions them. If you are a distributor, integrator, or service provider handling such products without manufacturing them yourself, the same applies to you.
The pledge asks something only of people who manufacture the technology themselves.
Notice and cure
If we believe someone is practicing a pledged claim without having made an Open Release, we will send written notice naming the product and saying what is missing.
That person then has sixty days from receiving the notice to make an Open Release. If they do, the pledge applies to them from that release forward, and we will not pursue claims arising during the notice period.
This exists to give people a way in. It is not a trap, and we will not use it as one.
The one exception: defense
This pledge does not protect a party who uses patents as a weapon. The non-assertion commitment ends, with respect to a given party, if that party starts patent litigation, or a patent-based proceeding seeking to block or invalidate the community’s use of the technology, against Rowow LLC, against any Rowow technology released under this pledge, or against any Qualifying Implementer or other good-faith user of it. It also ends for a party that funds or stands to gain from such an attack brought by someone else, so the pledge cannot be dodged by hiring a proxy.
When the commitment ends for a party, it ends across the whole Pledged Patents list for that party, not only for the patent at issue. This portfolio-wide defensive termination follows the proven model of Google’s Open Patent Non-Assertion Pledge, in force since 2013, and the patent-retaliation terms in widely used licenses such as Apache 2.0 and GPLv3. It deliberately mirrors CERN-OHL-S section 7.2, so that the license and the pledge have the same exit.
Separately, for a party that is a licensee of a given work, that party’s rights under that work end through its own CERN-OHL-S section 7.2 terms, which is why every Rowow repository carries a patent-peace notice that ties back to this pledge. Rowow also reserves all other rights to respond. A party that turns patents against the commons is cut off from the commons. This is a shield for the commons, not a sword.
Relationship to CERN-OHL-S
Nothing in this pledge limits, conditions, qualifies, or revokes any patent license granted under CERN-OHL-S section 7.1. That license is granted directly by Rowow to each licensee, is irrevocable on its own terms subject only to sections 7.2 and 8.4 of that license, and is unaffected by anything written here. If any part of this pledge is ever read to conflict with that grant, the grant governs.
This pledge is additional to the license. It exists to reach the people the license does not reach.
Technology not yet released
Some technology is held back for safety under our Staged Disclosure Policy, and some keystone inventions are patented before they are disclosed. Patents on not-yet-released core technology are reserved during the holding period. When that technology is released publicly, the corresponding patent is added to the Pledged Patents list and becomes subject to this pledge on the same terms. We hold these patents to keep the path open, not to close it. Existing patents on already-open core technology are added to the Pledged Patents list as we formalize each pledge.
What this pledge does not cover
This pledge covers the patents on the Pledged Patents list, which are patents on the open core technology. Rowow may also hold patents on proprietary, client-specific applications that are licensed commercially under separate agreements, as described in the Open Technology Charter. Those application patents are not part of this pledge unless Rowow chooses to add them to the list. The pledge keeps the open core open. It does not give away the commercial application work that funds the mission.
This pledge is also not a license to use our trademarks. The Rowow name and logo, and the S.E.M Technology name, are governed separately and are not granted here. It grants no rights under patents held by anyone other than Rowow. It makes no warranty of any kind, and all warranties are disclaimed.
Looking ahead
To extend protection to the wider community beyond our own patents, we intend to join a defensive patent network such as the Open Invention Network or the LOT Network. That would give builders some shield against third-party patent trolls that a single firm’s pledge cannot provide on its own.
Durability
A patent placed on the Pledged Patents list stays pledged. We grant this pledge as a present and irrevocable commitment that runs with the patent as a covenant appurtenant, binding our successors and anyone we sell or transfer the patent to. To make that hold rather than assume it, we also covenant that we will not transfer a pledged patent, or grant an exclusive license to one, except expressly subject to this pledge and on the written condition that the recipient assumes our obligations under it and imposes the same condition on any further transfer. We will record the commitment so any later owner takes the patent with notice of it.
The mechanism we rely on is the ordinary rule that a buyer takes a patent subject to the commitments already on it, and the model here follows Google’s Open Patent Non-Assertion Pledge, which is written to bind successors the same way.
We may publish later versions of this pledge. A later version applies only going forward. Anyone who was a Qualifying Implementer under an earlier version keeps the benefit of that version for the products they released under it.
Patents are time limited by law, roughly twenty years from filing. When a pledged patent expires, the underlying invention is free for everyone, which is the outcome we want.
Governing law
This pledge is governed by the laws of the State of Florida, United States, without regard to conflict of laws principles. Rowow submits to the jurisdiction of the state and federal courts located in Florida for any proceeding to enforce it.
Status list
The Pledged Patents list, and the list of patents reserved pending release, are published at rowow.net/patents and dated. This pledge is versioned in public.
Questions, and requests for confirmation that a given release qualifies, go to info@rowow.net. We would rather answer the question than litigate it.