14 DAY TRIAL // Twitter is proposing a solution to the poor state of the patent landscape, one that empowers the engineers and researchers that come up with the patented ideas and that blocks companies from using their patents for anything else than defense.
The Innovator's Patent Agreement is a new type of license that Twitter is applying to all of its patents, past and future, which guarantees that investors retain lifetime control over their ideas.
Twitter will only be able to use the patent it owns defensively, against companies that have filed patent infringement lawsuits, without approval from the inventor.
If it tries to sue any other company, the inventors have the right to license the patent to the company being sued.
Patents are becoming a bigger problem than ever, threatening innovation and putting power and money into the hands of companies which have long stopped innovating or have never done it.
"We will implement the IPA later this year, and it will apply to all patents issued to our engineers, both past and present," Twitter wrote.
"We are still in early stages, and have just started to reach out to other companies to discuss the IPA and whether it might make sense for them too. In the meantime, we’ve posted the IPA on GitHub with the hope that you will take a look, share your feedback and discuss with your companies," it explained.
Twitter is the only company adopting the IPA, it came up with it, but others may join it. If anything, it's a great PR move and a good incentive when hiring.
It remains to be seen how effective the move is and whether it will actually change anything. However, unlike other companies complaining about this (Google), Twitter is at least doing something and not just amassing huge amounts of patents of their own.