 Hi everyone, my name is Gaurav and I work for an antique company from Indonesia that's called Xenius and I'll be talking about a very interesting case today that happened in 2019. So it's more like I used to hear in the news like a lot of times like Google versus Oracle and Apple versus Samsung those kind of cases but this is the first time and I heard like an open source project being sold for a bit in like written litigation. So that's why I wanted to share the story with everyone in the community around that if anybody has missed it and what went through this and like I've covered a lot on this case I followed a lot of documents and tried to read a lot about it. So I'll just try to share with you the story and what happened around. And also what kind of implications that this case has for the entire community. So let's get into this. Thank you. Okay, before this I need to be safe for myself because this is a legal case and I need to put myself on the safe side so I'll just read the disclaimer, which I stand by so the views and information presented in this talk slides are on of my own. So whatever I say I'll be right when we're like the opinions which I got from news articles and legal documents which I read for the presentation of this talk and anything I say or present in this talk or the slides is not approved or having any consent of GNOME or GNOME Foundation or my employer it is me who was presenting this talk and the research and views are there at my own capacity and responsibility. Okay, so before getting into the case I'll just talk a little bit about what's what's the business and what kind of business model that we are dealing with here. So basically, what I what I see is like anywhere you go and if you could see a scope of margin or profit where you could invest a specific amount or you take a specific risk, and you could see a scope of margin or profit that that sounds like a business right. So for around this concept almost every kind of business established. So similar is your business model which is called NPE. So NPE is short term for non practicing assertion entities or in the otherwise general public called them patent rolls. So I'm trying to be on the legal terms here so I'll not use the earlier term patent rolls to be on the safe side again. So basically, there are these entities whose core business model is using IP which stands for intellectual property. So they use this IPs to collect licensing fees instead of producing actual products. So usually people use IPs to protect their products and inventions and services for their businesses and they are not mostly into licensing fees. But instead NPE is there they their entire goal to get IPs just to get collect licensing fees, you know, like also get people into courts and assert for their patents, infringements, etc. So they could be a single investors with sufficient resources and they could have been public company, they could be at any scale, they could have a single patent to thousands of patents. So that's an NPE. So their business model is around this. So the risk here is that let's say if they invest in a patent and they could not find anyone to collect license from that. That's the kind of the risk they have. And if they find a lot of a lot of people around who are, you know, they could be infringing their patents, so they could go and ask licensing fee from them. So that's their marginal profit, which I was talking about. Okay, so that's the business angle to the side. Now let's get into the background of the case what happened. So now August 28 2019. Basically, there is this one called Rothschild imaging patent imaging LLP, which is headed by Mr. Lay Rothschild. This is a very well-known group known community for eligible infringement of this US patent number 9936086. I'll call it 086 was a big number and hard to remember. So against the very well-known open source software called Short Bell, which is being developed and maintained by the room community. So let's talk a little bit about what's Rothschild LLP. So you'll get to know the idea like where it's coming from. It's going to be on the safe side again. So you could guess your own, your own, what kind of nature this organization is having around patents. So RPA LLP, I'll also use the short term for Rothschild LLP. It's again a big term. So RPA, they are having like almost 300 patent litigations in last five years. Their owner or like Mr. Lay Rothschild who is heading RPA, he is on the name and mentor of like 150 US patents. So you could imagine the scale. And when they showed been home, they were already fighting two more organizations in parallel for the 086 patent, that same patent. And by the end of 2020, they have already fought 11 organizations in total or individuals in total for the 086 patent, the same patent. So their patents are so generic or I don't know why, but they could find a lot of people infringing their patents and they have lots of patents with them. So you could see that where this is going and how many people they are, like how much they go for the litigations, how frequent they are with this. So that's the kind of organization which showed the GNOME community moving ahead. Okay, what's this 086 patent which I just mentioned. So just a little brief around this patent and you will get to know how it stacked this patent was. So basically any image capturing device, image capturing mobile device and if it could receive multiple plurality of images, photographic images and if it provides you like, you know, filtering criteria, which you could use after you let's say you say that based on this particular filter, whichever the images that satisfy this particular filter, I'll send it to the other device using this method, right. So this idea. So that's that's being covered by the patents, it's being claimed by its claim cause clause four in the patent document. So, and if you will think about it, it's very abstract, even if you let's say have a laptop you let's say select five or four images from your laptop, which are being taken by the webcam of the same laptop and laptop is a mobile device and you filter on let's say more modified date or something. And you send it over internet to some other laptop so that kind of comes under what's being over here. So, that's what being covered by the patent wait six, and you could read more about this patent in the documents, which I'll be linking in the slides. So, this was the main idea which was being used at the short well itself itself. So if you read the features which are being mentioned at the short well. The short well allows you to import files from images from a disc or camera right so camera is a mobile capturing device again and if you are getting it from from a different device to so you will be importing it to let's say laptop. So again it comes under what the patent claims. So that's where they got it and also they were when I saw that patent litigation documents, they're mentioning that it allows users to share to major web services and that means wireless as well. So they're also they try to say that you know this point infringes are patents claim. So, in these points they try to challenge short well in the court. So when the known got this this case for them so they obviously needed help cause in US the patent courts are very patent litigation costs are very high, which is this model against comes in. So, if you have to fight a patent litigation, it's it usually costs around $1 million at the very start, and it could go up to $25 million and like in millions of dollars it goes. And when you have heard of like very famous patent cases like Google and Oracle they are of billions of dollars of scale. So that's why it becomes it is like no community will ever like to go after such go and fight such cases. So they offered them a settlement and like they offered a choice if you want to face in the court face them in the court or like, you want to face a roster in the court or you want to like settle down for a less amount. At the same time, you know, had this choice there, which I'll make and the resources are also limited because the norm is a NGO NGO and non profitable, not NGO non profitable come organization in US and running on donations as well. So, fighting a case that requires millions of dollars is not so feasible for them, but the kind of help they got it, it was like, it was like very kind of you know, you find water in desert like that. So, here, there are three main allies which are the norm, which caught, which were helping the norm. So first was OIN. I'll talk a little bit about when in the later part of the slides on my talk. So OIN help uncover prior of this patent. I'll talk about prior art as well. Sherman is Sterling is there is another entity which is a law firm out of US. So they offered a pro bono representation pro bono representation in legal word means that you are you as a legal firm is offering your services for free to society for societal cost to some organization or individual. But the reason behind is that out of that case which are helping out it is societies and benefit and as we know that open source is already very beneficial for our society and society. So, helping open source project ultimately helps out the society. So that's why they offered the pro bono representation for free and it was the like main reason by this cost of 4 million or millions of dollars got down very less. And the third entity was the community which we have a lovely community. So GNOME reached out to the open source community for help and it was received very well around the community they raised around like 150,000 dollars in very less time and over 4,000 individuals they help out for raising this amount. And plus one of the biggest point here is that which makes this case very important that even this law firm which is like very well known with the patent litigation word they also heard for the very first time that NP is doing an open source platform. So it's like that kind of unique in the sense. So that's why that's what also make very interesting this case because NNP is doing an open source platform is very rare and for me it was unheard of and apparently for Sherman is telling also that it was unheard of. Okay, so open invention network it is also something that we in open source community should be aware of. So that's why I want to bring this topic as well here. So open invention network is like a company that acquires patents and licenses them royalty free to the members who are a member of open invention network. So they also agree that they will not use the patents against any Linux or Linux based applications and applications and the projects. So it's like a patent bank so where you deposit your patent if you're the member and you will be having access to all of other other members as well and you will you will agree that I'm not going to use it against your project things like that. So for which are related Linux and software Linux related software. And so this is the one of the strategy which started on and these days when also uses a strategy where they try to work with us PTO which is the patent granting body in United States. So when somebody applies for a patent in your US. So they have this mechanism where they work with OIN and they try to see if the patent that's been applied for grant is having a broad scope or not and could in future you know disturb any open source project or not. So if OIN finds that that the patent that the idea which is being applied for the patent is very generic and very broad scope so they try to get that application down. GNOME turns to be a member of OIN but in this case GNOME can take the advantage of OIN's patent bank or the pool and as well as this US PTO mechanism because the patent is already being owned by an RPI. So OIN has to help GNOME in a very different way because not with the traditional makers they have been helping the open source projects. So that's about OIN and now I'll talk a little bit about what's prior arts and how it helped in this case and also what are abstract ideas and what are some of the observation in US history for abstract ideas. So basically if somebody approaches you for the patent infringement and you prove that whatever the product you have it was being made before the patent was granted. So that actually not just helps you win the case but it also invalidates the patent of the owner who tried to accuse you of patent infringement. So that is a very good way to get out of any patent litigation. So in other words if this case if GNOME could prove that the shortfall was made before when the patent was applied it would simply invalidate the patent and GNOME can easily get out of it. And on the second hand when we talk about abstract ideas so any idea which is very general and it's like a natural feeling and like mental process so you cannot basically patent it. So that's where US Supreme Court ruled multiple times in many occasions of patent litigation that you cannot patent an abstract idea. There are 10 minutes left. Yeah, thank you. So when I was mentioning about the idea like GNOME could also prove that this idea is abstract like it's very generic to share images between devices and anybody could think of such an idea so it's not patentable. So you have like these two different ways on how on the basis of which you could fight the case. So here the thing which RPI was you know on the disadvantage was that the claim for where on the basis of which the LS GNOME for the infringement of the patent it was basically on 2010 it was patented and while shortfall program itself it was released in 2007. So this predated the claim invention so this covers the prior art point. So here from this point GNOME could easily win the case while the courts agreed basically on the abstract idea point as well which was ruled out with Supreme Court and if you will read the laws you know abstract ideas are also being in the patent laws it's somewhere written like you cannot patent an abstract idea as well. So it's kind of like a fault with the USPTO that they should not have granted the patent itself. So any point could have held out GNOME in the case but the court and the like I don't know which entity itself but eventually the abstract idea point was the basis of winning on this case because it also allowed for the litigation to get quickly resolved and the settlement gets done. Now after this, after this win the GNOME, GNOME sued RPI back for filing the counter claim. Initially they were in talks with Sherman their lawyers that we want the attorney fees back but due to some reasons they were not able to get the fees back instead they got something very big than just the attorney fees. So the result out of this case was that you know after some negotiations and discussion with the Rothschild GNOME got to get released out of this case and they got access to all of the Rothschild patents. So when I mentioned that Rothschild have over like 150 patents not just this 086 they got access to all of the patents and on top of that Rothschild agreed to give access to all of its patent to all of the open source projects which is the biggest thing I think out of this case. All of the projects which are approved by open source initiative get access to Rothschild patents they cannot come after any open source OSI approved project now and even in the future if Rothschild get any patent so they cannot come after the project. So this is the biggest thing I think like open source could celebrate our community could celebrate out of this case which I also wanted to highlight on this one. So yeah that's one the biggest thing I am really happy about to present you all. So the takeaways of this case are like you are not here about just winning the attorney fees back or getting out of this case. There are many lessons learned the community got access to a big pool of the patent and also OAN learned the lesson that you just don't need to collect patents and you know try to build a pool now the challenges of these NPs as well. So they hold a lot of poor quality patent abstract idea patents and they go after open source projects as well because this was the first time as well. I think OAN heard that NPs could come after open source project as well. They are like very soft targets for NPs because open source projects run on donations and they might not be able to fight such cases. So OAN they pivoted their strategy they are now going against Rothschild for invalidity of all its patents which is like a happy news for me. And they are also trying to go after such another NP entities. So this is the strategy change that they have taken off and also you I think like being legally correct for me this was a takeaway like you have to be legally correct. Like sometimes I used to mock the US press conference tech conferences like you know why the CEOs are being like very legally correct and like they're not saying what's the reality. But now I get to know that being legally correct is very important and as a developers like we take less care about laws and everything but I think we should take more give more attention to law as well. There are five minutes left. Yeah thank you. So and obviously you know first projects don't need to worry about Rothschild and now and this case also proves that patent system is broken in US and they must have some sort of a prime of ACI invalidity test before granting the project. And yeah you should join and go for the GNOME project or any other first project you'd like to do. Thank you guys. Thank you. So that's what I want to talk about. There is questions. Do you think this acted as a deterrent for others? Can you translate everything in your speaker? What does that mean? It means a thing that discourages or is intended to discourage someone from doing something so maybe it discouraged some others from doing so. Yeah so the thing with patents is that like patents are actually a very good tool if used in a right way to protect any inventors invention and they have proven themselves. But if you are trying to patent an abstract idea or like if your sole goal is to go after people and use patent as a tool to basically bully people and like try to make money out of without even offering anything to the source. So if you are trying to make money out of society or any product or service so that that is not a right way to do it and it discourages anybody I guess. And this particular case it actually encourages like open source committee that it actually proves a very big point that if someone tries to touch open source projects for random reasons and like just try to bully any open source project the community is there they support each other and will come out of it. That's the thing that I could take away from this this case and on your question I think it does not discourages it like and could you like please elaborate a bit of how you could see like want to specifically ask on this one.