The GNOME Foundation settles a patent issue, and receives a release and covenant not to be sued. Further, a release and covenant is granted to any software that is published under an Open-Source [4]-Initiative-approved free software [5] licence. Contrary to the initial announcement, the GNOME Foundation didn't go to court to have this patent invalidated.
In October of 2019, the GNOME Foundation was attacked by a patent troll 1 and decided to fight back in court, to defend itself as well as the free software communities against abuses from the patent system. April had supported the Foundation [6] in its endeavour by making a donation to the GNOME defence fund against patent trolls.
GNOME [7] is a free, easy-to-use, user-friendly desktop environment whose goal is to make free operating systems accessible. As the Foundation explained [8], it was under attack by the Rothschild Patent Imaging (RPI) patent troll for infringing an image distribution patent [9] concerning Shotwell, the GNOME's image and photo-organising application. The Foundation decided not to let this happen and to go to court, in order to “send a message to all software patent trolls.”
In its October 2019 announcement, the GNOME Foundation indeed announced a motion to dismiss the claim and have the patent invalidated: “We want to send a message to all software-patent trolls – we will fight, we will win, and we will get your patent invalidated.”
On May 20, 2020, the GNOME Foundation, Rothschild Patent Imaging and Leigh M. Rothschild announced [10] that the dispute had been resolved: the Foundation has obtained a non-sue clause for any patent held by Rothschild Patent Imaging. In addition, the agreement provides that free software under an Open Source [4] Initiative licence (see the licence list [11]) cannot be sued by Rothschild Patent Imaging for infringing any of the nearly hundred licences involved.
This is probably a good deal for GNOME, as it neutralises about 100 patents for free software under an OSI-approved licence. But in the end the Foundation considers the software patent that RPI based its claim on – and incidentally all the others in its portfolio – as valid. This out-of-court settlement resolves a particular case – the threat of RPI's patents – whereas the counterattack announced by GNOME could have led to a case law extending beyond this single case, in a field where case law is rare. The patent trolls have a vested interest in maintaining this sort of legal uncertainty, which is a determining factor in their capacity to cause harm, by avoiding lawsuits.
- 1. Patent trolls are companies whose business model is based solely on licensing and patent litigation.