Your Web News in One Place

Help Webnuz

Referal links:

Sign up for GreenGeeks web hosting
April 17, 2012 10:43 pm GMT

The Twitter IPA: What Does Defensive Really Mean?

bicycle patentTwitter is an innovative company, and todays introduction of theInnovators Patent Agreementshows that their legal department can be innovative too. The Innovators Patent Agreement, adraft of whichwas released on GitHub, will allow inventors to retain control of their inventions to make sure that they are only used for defensive purposes. This new agreement is a clear PR and recruiting win for Twitter, but whether it will be anything more is debatable.At first glance, theInnovators Patent Agreementis a huge derivation from the standard assignment model, where an employee assigns all of their rights in an idea to their employer. In todays climate, where many developers openly dislike the patent system, this new agreement may be a game changer. Recently, a Yahoo developeropenly lamentedthe use of his technology in Yahoos lawsuit against Facebook. TheInnovators Patent Agreementappears to be Twitters direct response to that mindset. Thus, the most likely initial result will be the use of this agreement as a recruitment tool. Indeed, in Twitters blog post Twitter asks interested developers to #Jointheflock.

Original Link: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/Lgcoy-8fykw/

Share this article:    Share on Facebook
View Full Article

Techcrunch

TechCrunch is a leading technology blog, dedicated to obsessively profiling startups, reviewing new Internet products, and breaking tech news.

More About this Source Visit Techcrunch