They're probably patenting this to make sure nobody else does, and if Google's track record is any indication, they will probably make this available for free.
"Patenting it so someone else can't" is just something people say. Publishing the details of the technique would be enough to establish prior art--no need to file a patent. There is such a thing as defensive patenting, but that's more about building up a portfolio of patents in an area so that if someone sues you, you have something to counterclaim with.
> Make this available for free to anyone who doesn’t sue Google, doesn’t object to patents, etc
Fixed this for you.
Legally, according to the patent license, I can’t use VP8 (Google) or react (Facebook) either, as I believe the patents, like all software patents, are invalid and should not have been granted.
> Make this available for free to anyone who doesn’t sue Google, doesn’t object to patents, etc
> Legally, according to the patent license, I can’t use VP8 (Google)
OK, let's see:
> If you or your agent or exclusive licensee institute or order or agree to the institution of patent litigation or any other patent enforcement activity against any entity (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that any of these implementations of WebM or any code incorporated within any of these implementations of WebM constitutes direct or contributory patent infringement, or inducement of patent infringement, then any patent rights granted to you under this License for these implementations of WebM shall terminate as of the date such litigation is filed.[1]
Seems upfront to me, and nothing to do with if you sue Google over matters unrelated to VP8, believe software patents are invalid, etc etc.
It's just a modified Apache 2.0 patent license grant, so unless you object to all projects under that...?
> If You institute patent litigation against any entity (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that the Work or a Contribution incorporated within the Work constitutes direct or contributory patent infringement, then any patent licenses granted to You under this License for that Work shall terminate as of the date such litigation is filed.[2]
"Validity" is a legal term of art in patents. Agreeing not to challenge the validity of the patent means, e.g., that you won't file an IPR seeking invalidation on anticipation grounds. It doesn't require you to subscribe to any set of political beliefs.
> So, no, webm, VP8, VP9, Google’s new stuff, etc is not "free of patents", it just happens to have patents which most users don’t notice.
As I pointed out above, that isn't true except in the narrow sense of if you try to sue for the invalidity of the webm patents specifically, and then you'd lose your license to the webm patents and only the webm patents (never mind that if you tried to argue that a software patent was invalid because all software patents should be invalid the court would throw it out so fast that likely no one would notice what you did).
You can object to that narrow clause, but no one ever claimed the project was "free of patents", just that it was royalty-free and that it includes a patent license grant for any patents covering the code and format.
Moreover, as (again) I noted above, every Apache 2.0 licensed project has the same clause, so you have a lot more windmills you should be tilting at right now.
I’m more annoyed about Facebook (if you fight any patent in court that’s even related to any of theirs, you lose ALL licenses to anything they might own), but still.
You're very obviously conflating personal preference with law. What you said doesn't make any sense.
Let me give you an example: I object to high-fructose corn syrup being in Coca Cola in the US market, therefore it's illegal for me to drink Coca Cola in the US.
No. The patent license of react says "this license becomes void if the user objects to the validity of software patents, KR questions the validity of any Facebook Inc. patent". (Quoted from memory, so not guaranteed to be accurate)
