| How much do you want and in what area?
Googling "federal circuit implicit patent grant" will find you tons of free sources, as will "Federal circuit exhaustion". Like i said, it just doesn't say "software" on it.
But it's not like this is fresh snow. People have been dealing with this in every facet of thing for years. There's plenty of caselaw even on things like "person gives away free samples, later tries to sue for patent infringement" or "person gives gift, later tries to sue for patent infringement and "person licenses !software, later tries to sue for patent infringement". If you have access to lexis or something, it's all neatly organized too :) If you don't, here's a reasonable case to start on exhaustion: http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/opinions-or... Exhaustion of patent rights applies even when it's given away free:
"In summary, we hold that patent exhaustion principles
apply equally to all authorized transfers of title in
property, regardless of whether the particular transfer at
issue constituted a gift or a sale. " Here's an older article with a ton of cites:
https://www.finnegan.com/en/insights/the-u-s-supreme-court-c... Note: All the parts in the article that talk about restricting use post-sale are now invalid.
The supreme court held, last year, that post-sale restrictions cannot be imposed, exhaustion still occurs,
too bad, so sad. (http://www.ipwatchdog.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Supreme...) Now remember, it doesn't matter if it was sold sold or given away,, i just gave you precedent saying it applies just as well to a gift. So those are out the window too. That's just on the exhaustion side, even without finding an implied license (which are closely related). There really is just no precedent to hang your hat on that says "yeah, you can give people stuff, tell them they can use it, and then sue them for patent infringement". It doesn't matter if it's an implied grant, exhaustion, you name it.
There is just no case out there that says "yeah, that's okay". |
I guess I was googling for the wrong term - implicit patent license leads to a very different set of speculative answers compared to "implied patent grant" and "federal circuit exhaustion".