 Let's do this, so I can keep track of where I am. Awesome. So thanks for showing up today. My name is Robinson Tryon. I currently work for the Lot Network, which is a entity nonprofit that helps deal with patent rolls. And I've worked in various other capabilities. Worked on LibreOffice, worked on some neat metadata games collecting information for archives and libraries. And I'm based in Dallas, Texas, which is lots of fun for giving talks about patents because the patent capital of the world in East Texas, Marshall, Texas, is basically two hours due east of me. So this wasn't planned. I moved there first and then got this job done. For this presentation, I should probably keep a look at the time as well. I wanted to kind of just look at what's going on with patents in the US and Europe. Talk about what's happening. And a lot of stuff is happening. A lot of amazing things are happening. And keep all of you guys awake. But I'll cover your yawning. So I'll have to work on that. And just talk about patent strategy for businesses. So I originally had like a 20 minute talk, I think. And then I realized I had more time, so hopefully I did not expand my slides too much. We'll see how I zoom through. So I'm not a lawyer. Not your lawyer. All the normal stuff applies. But hopefully you guys have a little familiar with law and patents and sort of jump through things. I know a couple of you guys are lawyers. Many of you are lawyers at all? Couple? All right. So I do apologize if I say things or things seem overly simple to you. Because I wanted to sort of discuss some topics and talk about some things that I learned about. I didn't know a lot about regarding legal issues in the EU and in the United States. So let's begin. When I started researching these systems, I didn't really understand the total impacts of events and how that would affect patent systems and how that would affect litigation and so forth. So I sort of started as sort of a narrow review. And that really expanded, that grew into looking at sort of the amazing change that administrative change a leader like a new president of the United States can have. So I found that very interesting. And I hope that you guys will as well. So the crux of my talk, I think, was about preparing free and open-source software companies to deal with patents, to actually sort of give you guys tidbits of information about how you can look at the patent sphere, you can look at litigation, and get a handle on what's going on and what's going to come next. Because I think that's really important to see what's going to come next, what the future of patents, the future of patentability is. Some patent strategies, some ways of dealing with patents are, of course, smarter than others. But what I found very interesting is that there are a lot of companies, a lot of startups out there, who basically have no plan about dealing with patents. Whether they are startups in hardware or software, hardware more than software. But a large number of startups, both in the free software space and not, that don't really think about patents. They sort of push it off. And I think that's the wrong strategy. I think it's something that we need to think about early on so that we don't back ourselves into a corner, so that we have the ability to reduce our risk and to make smart decisions. So educating yourself, of course, is the most important thing. It doesn't hurt to educate yourself on legal systems beyond your own. I remember when I learned French for the first time, I had no idea what the imperfect was. I had no idea what these other things were. I used it in English, I used concepts, but it was by learning other systems, by being able to compare and contrast that then you can actually have a greater understanding of your system. So slings and arrows. So one really interesting lawsuit that I thought was a great place to start in terms of litigation is there was a guy in a pastor who liked to larp. He liked to shoot people with arrows. And these were foam-tipped arrows. So it was no death. But he started selling these things online. And he expanded his business, and he started to import arrows from, as it turns out, European countries. So we have this US and Europe already involved here. So there was a company that sued him for patent and trademark infringement, because they wanted to make sure they got everything. And they claimed that the arrows he was selling infringed on patents that they had filed for their own hardware, for their own game. And they told him, probably with a little bit of bragging and hopefully to scare him, that they had set aside $150,000. And he was definitely intimidated by that. So he didn't really have any money. Again, he's a pastor, a youth pastor. Didn't have a lot of money. So he turned to go fund me and asked others in his community, which could be very similar to, say, the free and open software community, to help him defend against this particular case. And in response to that, Glover Archery, this company, tried to get a gag order to stop him talking about this. So basically, they kind of ratcheted things up and thankfully were unsuccessful. What really was great for him was that after the suit came out, Newegg, who is a very strong stance against patent rolls, stepped forward to help him. And in fact, they had been selling these T-shirts, Troll Hunter T-shirts. And they set aside $10,000 from that to help him for his lawsuit, to defend against this patent roll lawsuit. So Newegg, Lee Chang, is Chief Counsel there. And in fact, Newegg and Lee Chang are involved in the Lot Network as well, who I work for, again, with patent rolls. Chang basically said, and he went a little further than I might have, he said that this company, even though they sell products, he said they're basically a troll because they're a certain questionable IP, they're aggressive, and he went on and on, you can read. But he basically laid into them. And what was really important, I think, about this, is that after Chang and Newegg signed on, as this sort of champion, global dropped its case, global finally acknowledged there was prior art from Germany that had been created in the past, and they basically dropped the lawsuit. In fact, they don't drop the lawsuit, they basically, they immediately dropped the lawsuit to basically avoid having their own IP invalidated. So they kind of did a really quick shuffle. So what I think was really important about this case, even though it's not about freedom or software, it's in a slightly different realm, is that not everyone has a champion. So in different spheres, not everyone has a champion, which means that it's important for you to set yourself up for success. It's important for you to have a patent policy. And whether that's making friends, whether that's joining a group like the Law Network, Open Invention Network, you should have a patent policy, an IP policy, sooner the better. So what I thought was especially interesting, even though he had strong prior art, he was unable to shake the lawsuit because he wasn't a lawyer. He didn't have that background. So don't overestimate a wealthy plaintiff. People have big war chests. So with that in mind, thinking about the little guy, the big guy, I want to kind of look at the European Union and US patent systems and think about what courts look like in the future, what relationships will exist between countries, and so forth. So the UPC, do you guys call that a UPC in Europe as well? OK, good. I saw that. When I first heard UPC, it kept on running in me, so I had to run there. It's a proposed court open to all members of the EU, but it's not a part of the EU. I was a little confused about that. But it was important to look at this because basically UPC, as I understand it, would supersede a lot of the other courts, would collect all of the patent cases, especially software patent cases, into one court that would apply to all of these European Union member countries, and deal with infringement, and as well as decide about unitary patents. So kind of like a pan-European file at once run everywhere, Java, I think? Java patent, maybe? But there was a great talk last year. If you guys want to learn more about it, please take a look at that. Here's really quickly some concerns that were raised last year about it, and I think are still relevant. It's a pro-patent court. Is he claimed? Basically because all they would do is patents. So we sort of get into their brain. There are similar claims made for court in the United States, court of bill through the Federal Circuit, all they do is patent, not all they do is patents, but largely they engage with a lot of patent work, and so therefore patents on the brain. Some other issues, there's no appeals court. So in the United States there's a court, the Supreme Court of the United States, that reviews these other court's decisions, and hopefully injects some sanity basically to those who deal with patents all the time. There's nothing to override that. There's a pro-software patent tradition from Germany, and it's independent from the EU, which makes it a little bit weird. And patents are only translated into a few languages. So basically, we could go through these individually, but basically what this sums up to is that the UPC will be a very unfriendly place for dealing with patents, especially software patents. And I think that if enacted would be a very unhealthy development for free software. But I guess thankfully, it doesn't exist yet. Basically, the UK and Germany both have to sign, and then the Brexit happened. So what does the Brexit mean? It's very interesting. And again, one of the lawyers out there might wave your hand insistently, that's great, you can correct me. But as I understand, one of the problems is that basically the Brexit right now, in short term, won't have any major impacts on patents in the European Union. But after the UK leaves the EU, it won't be under the jurisdiction of the EU courts. And it can't be a member of the proposed UPC. But for the UPC to exist, it needs to have written and needs to have Germany ratified. So this is an issue that's going on right now. So in fact, the UK, who theoretically is leaving, said, we're going to leave. Don't worry. But we're going to ratify this first. So that's cool. We're either going to ratify it and then they leave. The problem with that is that the UPC is designed, and I might be jumping ahead here for a second, but basically, so the UK said yes. As long as we're members of the EU, we're going to participate, we're going to be a part of this. But the issue with this is that the UPC is supposed to be only EU members. So if Britain signs on to it and then they leave, then they're a part of the UPC, but they can't be a part of the UPC. It's very confusing. So for me, some scholars have said there's a convoluted way around this. Well, to sort of summarize that, that means for anybody else who has to deal with patents. So anyone else who has to deal with these courts or has to try to make some type of patent strategy for future, it's very impenetrable. It's very difficult. So in essence, there's one more reason why having a patent strategy, having at least a lawyer you can talk to, to give you some advice in these situations is very important. I'm sure that this is going to change in the next few months continually. Of course, many people in the UK kind of like the idea of leaving without joining the UPC because it is essentially such a pro-software patent court. So what would happen in the UK without the UPC? Basically, my understanding is that it would be a little bit more free software friendly. Basically, the UK has a slightly smaller scope of patentability than what is currently present. So to summarize basically that, it would be a little bit better free software in Britain. So in the United States, this part is exciting. So on what's going on under Obama, there was the American Events Act. There were some really great parts of that act that enabled people to work on getting rid of bad patents before they were while they were being filed. So any of you guys involved with Linux defenders? Any of you guys involved with basically getting rid of these patents? OK, so basically it was working with prior art. It was basically a way in which various members of the community with legal background often, but not necessarily, could help to basically tell the patent office, hey, this is a bad patent. Hey, there's prior art. So this is definitely I think something that companies should think about, especially if they're operating a certain space, databases, virtualization, et cetera. This is something that is really important. I'm not sure if there's something parallel in Europe right now, but it would be great to have an ability for someone to say, hey, someone's trying to file a patent on XYZ. And we have XYY. It's really close to that. And this is something that should be reviewed. So that's something that should be a part of your patent strategy. What can we expect under Trump? So there wasn't really much information under Trump. It's going to be exciting. IP wasn't a primary focus. Everyone online, all of the articles I've been reading, the research I've done, says everyone is excited about writing articles about it. But they really don't know. They just like to talk a lot. So what we do know, he had an uncle, actually, was interestingly who won a presidential medal of freedom, who was an inventor at MIT and did a lot of really neat stuff. So he had a cool uncle. So we can be happy about that. He has criticized some companies. And because of his business and his behavior, I think that the United States were going to see a policy emerge that's going to be more patent friendly, friendly to just friendly. And probably about the only thing I'm certain about in this presentation, he's going to tweet about it. So who's in charge? In the United States, there's currently someone called Michelle Lee. She was appointed under Obama. Peter Thiel, if anyone knows who he is, she actually went to Stanford Law at the same time. So I love all these interesting connections, people in the same classes at the same time. So she has been active, actually. There's rumors that she's staying on, but it's very unclear right now. She was previously working at Google, and she pushed her a lot of patent reform. So probably the lawyers in here know what some of these things are. The rest of you, Google is your friend. Interesting things. She worked on enhancing patent quality, this enhanced patent quality initiative, which was great one time when basically there was an acknowledgement that poor quality patents had come out of the patent office. She implemented this interpartisan review, which helped to deal with trolls, was hoped to be a better way, cheaper, more accurate way to deal with patent quality, deal with patents, rather than having a hearing about them. And she even floated the idea of putting them to forum shopping. So when I mentioned about the Eastern Texas court, which some of you might be familiar with, where all the patent troll activity happens in the United States, she was hopefully going to put an end to that. So largely I would say she was a friend to free software. It's unclear if she's going to continue as director. It's all a big question mark, which isn't a huge surprise under Trump's presidency. But we are awaiting. So who might replace her? So this is sort of the kicker, I think. Philip Johnson possibly could replace her. He was someone who Trump vetted, not sorry, not Trump, Obama vetted, but tech companies didn't like him. And if he or someone like him were to become the head of the patent office, this could have a huge impact on patents in the United States. You can see here he crystallized legislation that would require details about patent infringement. He opposed transparency requirements. And he basically wanted less regulation. So this could be a big change. And to step backwards, a lot of you would say the way patents are handled in the United States. So the cost of a patent troll suit. So if you've ever been sued by a patent troll, I apologize. And hopefully that you got through it pretty much unscathed. If you were a small company, you probably didn't survive. You can think 3.3 million. I just was talking to my cousin who has a small startup. And I'm pretty sure that that is about at least three times one of the money they currently have in the bank. So basically, patent lawsuits, this is in the United States. I'm wearing most of my numbers. Usually costs about $1.5 million in legal fees. And that a little bit more in license costs are basically if you have to pay off this troll. Unfortunately, in these troll cases, small companies bear a large amount of the money. And it makes sense. I mean, in a crude way, not in a good way. But basically, patent trolls go after the week of the flock. Who's the week of the flock? It's going to be the young startups and so forth, which is unfortunate. But it's a predator-prey relationship. If you work on hardware, hopefully you guys don't. You're going to pay a lot more. Licensing can be many millions, 8 million, for example. That's an average. It could be much higher. So in the realm of hardware, basically, a lot of places where patents can be regulated in the United States, and one is in the FTC, the Federal Trade Commission. So just before Trump took office, the FTC sued Qualcomm, accusing them of unfair competition, claiming they violated fran licensing, that they basically were bundling hardware and patent licenses exclusively, and had some exclusive deals with Apple. And this is something the FTC does. Again, like the United States Patent Office, it is part of what they do in terms of regulating trade. But a lot of people are very concerned, because this review could have had a big impact on how hardware companies regulate, how hardware companies sell their products, how they might bundle patent licenses with hardware, for example, something that is of great concern to the free software community. Qualcomm found this, it's really amusing. Qualcomm announced an open-source subsidiary in 2009. And if any of you guys know about Qualcomm, if you don't, and this is, I think, kind of telling, you know, proudly proclaim, Qualcomm gets into open source and pigs begin to fly. So, basically, not a big fan, historically of open source, free software. So, what might happen under Trump? So, a lot of people have asked, a lot of conservative groups, have asked Trump to stop the FTC's action. And the effect that could have, sort of the knock-on effect, is that, you know, it could basically change how we see antitrust, basically fair trade thing, happening in the United States, which could affect a lot of free software companies. So, the FTC decided to file the suit, broke down on party lines, basically. And the chair, you can see there, who voted for this resigned in February. And, actually, I'm not sure she's resigned yet, she's resigned in a couple of days. The London Center has been appointed the chair of the FTC, and with this change, it's quite likely the FTC, excuse me, will give more broad permission to companies like Qualcomm to basically increase their patent litigation. O'Housen, excuse me, is critical of net neutrality and of regulation in general. I think this is sort of a common thread that we're gonna see throughout change in the administration. Regarding Obama's FTC, excuse me, she said that with one that pursued an antitrust agenda, that disregarded sound economics, basically made unsupported assertions of unfair competition. So, basically, she's expected Qualcomm, excuse me, more flexibility in how it capitalizes on its assets. So, she also discussed PAEs or patent trolls in her talk, and she said that these patent trolls have become the boogeyman of the patent world, and she worried that patent form would have harmed U.S. innovation. So, it's unclear what action she's gonna take about patent trolls, but basically, it's highly unlikely for freedom of the software companies to see meaningful patent reform over the next four years. Reducing risk. So, excuse me, no matter who you are as a company, no matter who you're working for, and whatever the size of your holdings, any company can be seriously challenged by a patent suit. You've seen this happen with Google and Oracle, you've seen this happen with Apple and lawsuits it's faced in several times over the last two years. So, no patent strategy is bulletproof, but there are many approaches to reducing risk. So, one which I find kind of novel, but I think is good as sort of a baseline thought process, is that patent trolls, if we look at patent trolls themselves, they don't produce goods, they don't sell services, and they don't participate in collaborative behaviors, and by doing this, they basically have no surface to sue. There's nothing to go after. So, most companies do in fact need to produce goods or services to stay in business, but avoiding certain activities, or at least thinking about what activities might be the most likely target for a troll or for patent litigation, is a useful exercise when you're developing patent strategy, and that can reduce your risk. There are a number of entities, a number of groups, as I mentioned, the Open Invention Network, I think some of you are familiar with them, that can reduce your risk in patent litigation. The Lot Network, who I work for, is a collaborative solution to dealing with patent trolls, and also reduce your patent risk. And the Open Patent Office, is Frédéric Quistier here? Hello, so he has a, I wanted to throw this in here, because I saw it on the slate, let's see his talk is coming up next, so he'll be giving a talk about this right afterwards, so stick around, and you can learn a bit more about how this is an alternative to a traditional patent office, and make it work out well as part of your patent strategy. There are a lot of other strategies, the EFF created a document called Hacking Patent System, a guide to alternative patent licensing for innovators. Not sure what happened with that, I think maybe HTML, that's a hyperlink there, and that might have knocked out my last bullet point, but this is a guide, I think it's a couple of years old, but it talks about a lot of different groups that are either a patent pool, a patent grant entity, a alternative to traditional patent licensing, for example, so there are a lot of different strategies you can just probably look in the EFF website for that document, and we'll give you a lot of different types of groups or strategies you could use to shape your patent strategy for your free open source software business. So I wanted to look at just one more patent suit that I thought was instructive, that was interesting and pertaining to freedom of source software. So CRISPR, how many of you guys familiar with biotechnology in CRISPR, have you heard about CRISPR, a few of you? So it's basically this technique in biotechnology that allows people to manipulate DNA. So there is basically a significant dispute, all you need to know over which researchers who were the originators of this technique and then who should have control of the patents vile to this, and this is big business, this is tens of billions of dollars of business here. So Harvard University and the Broad Institute are duking it out with Berkeley University and if you guys know, Harvard is on the east coast and Berkeley's on the west, so it's kind of got this east-west side feud. You can see Harvard the last couple of years has spent 15 million dollars and Berkeley has spent over five million, I think it's closer to seven now, and we're not even close to being done with this suit. So average cost for a lawsuit like this is estimated about seven million dollars, so you can tell that this lawsuit has been much more expensive than previous ones. What I think was really interesting about this case, so it's a biotech patent, a series of biotech patents, and deals with this technology, is that CRISPR is a tool for editing and rewriting DNA, so it can allow people to start to program a very coarse level DNA, genetic code. And what I think this is really important to us is that we're at this infancy with biotech manipulation, so right now we have to deal with hardware patents and software patents that might affect what we do as free software companies. And there are a lot of changes happening with software patents, hardware patents are a little more stable right now, but it's something that affects what businesses can exist, how businesses can innovate, how they can protect their inventions, and what free software can do in that space. So we've already started to see computer integration with human bodies, pacemakers, insulin pumps, other integration, but in the future we're gonna see microscopic changes, we're gonna see people hacking on the DNA inside our bodies. So the real question in my mind in terms of patent preparedness, in terms of free software companies taking an active part in the forefront essentially of freedom in programming and so forth, are we prepared to safeguard this? Are we prepared to be an active member in that? And I think the answer is not yet. So I think we need to become prepared very soon because this is sort of one of the next avenues for free software for genetic freedom, if you will. And it's something that we need to have in our minds going forward so that we can make smart decisions. The reality is there's no one-size-fits-all strategy dealing with patents. Fast companies need to prepare for your individual patent battles, your individual cases, but you also need to think about larger patent related topics, especially ones like sort of genetic programming that have ethical and economic ramifications. I think that it is incumbent essentially on us because of the thought that we put into our businesses, the thought that we put into our strategies of how we desire businesses and the ethics of what we do with hardware and software that it's important for us to think about the future and think about what important topics we need to stress and we need to bring to the forefront and talk with politicians, talk with our patent courts and so forth. Most fast companies don't have large legal departments, they don't have a large budget, but learning about the pertinent systems, learning about technologies is really the only strategy that will bring you long-term success. So, any questions? Excellent. Do you have any back there? Oh, should I give you a... Oh, okay. Just run up. So, the whole idea of patents made me a bit sick, but the idea that I like to take from here is should I try to patent the software and then pull it in a patent pool or just ignore that and continue pushing to GitHub as normal? Yeah, I mean, if those are the two options, then I would say consider filing the patent, although it's expensive. So, I think there are a lot more options than that, right? So, I think that this idea about the open patent, the next talk, are you put up to this? No, I'm just joking. But yeah, so I think that there are a lot of other options. There are a lot of companies that will make public disclosures, right? Or there are, yeah, several mechanisms, essentially, where you can basically file these defensive publications to basically describe, and I think several of them are in some ways describing like a patent. They describe a system mechanism, so forth, where you could basically deed something to the public domain, the comments, and that's probably at least a cheaper way of going forward, but you don't get your name on a patent. So, you know, maybe you file one patent and then you have your name on a patent. Anyone else right there? And so, I sell license exceptions to GPL as a business, and I deal with mostly US and German companies, the two biggest customers, but only the US actually ever requested things like indemnification, not the Germans. So, what are your thoughts on that? And sometimes I could have a bang around indemnifications with Andrew Katz, my outside legal counsel, and then I pay, eventually, sometimes, if it's big enough, I just charge them more and then I give up and give them the indemnification. So, I don't know if that's a good strategy or not, what are your thoughts on indemnification? I don't really have a big background on indemnification with GPL. I feel like that might be a question for Richard or someone of his ilk, I don't know if you want to weigh in on that, but I think it's interesting, but I don't know a lot about it, honestly. So, but what I would ask you is, I mean, is it a booming business for you? You know, is it something that is, yeah. So, I mean, if there's a large business right there, if it's something with a lot of money involved, then I think that it's something pertinent, we should be discussed, right? We need to discuss those bigger topics, especially things like big dollar numbers attached to them. So, excellent, in the back there. We need to have like a volleyball, like a soft volleyball that you put the mic in and you throw it at somebody. Josh has his- Oh, it's gonna patent it, it was. What's that visual? Oh, yeah, thank you. Hi there, it's not so much a question, although I suppose it is, in a way. It's been a long time since I've studied the EPC, but as I recall, the EPC more recently included very specific provisions in connection with biotech patenting. As I recall, a number of them came out of the uncle mouse, Dave Barkle. So, I would think that the realm, shall we say, of patenting in connection with biotech inventions is probably, or possibly even, more fuss-oriented as far as it's more difficult or more stricter to obtain biotech patents under the EPC than, for example, software-related ones. Oh, interesting, that's interesting. Yeah, I'm not as familiar with that and then biotech is also not my field, so it's a couple of beacons away, but right there. So, just a comment, really. There are organizations in the United States, intellectual property organizations, particularly the Intellectual Property Owners Association and the American Intellectual Property Law Association, that are absolutely horrified with Section 101 in the United States, which is the one that's invoked for not patentable subject matter. And they're working vigorously to reverse the Alice decision and then the Myriad decision. So, I just wanted to point out that there is a huge constituency of largely of patent lawyers and patent-owning companies that are working vigorously to sort of reverse the advantages of the interpretation of patents that have been advantageous to FOS, but there's a very large constituency working against that. Sure, yeah. And I guess one thing that I find interesting and maybe it's partially the nature of software patents, it's partially the nature of how patents apply to this space that what seems like sometimes very small movements on the dial can have a very large impact, whereas in other spaces, it seems like things are much more grained, they're much more coarse, but minute changes can have a huge impact on such a vast amount of economic space. So, I'd like to follow up with you on that, Pam. Are you suggesting that these organizations are trying to solidify Section 101 machine transformation test to like validate that for software? Yes, and the IPO just recently came out with a public, I believe someone can help me out maybe here, was it a draft statute, some draft language that they wanted in order to make 101 apply back again to software patents or to sort of reverse the effect of Alice Amiriad. So, the IPO has come out with a statement, AIPLA is working on one right now and I expect we'll have it come out shortly. Give them a dislike. Yeah. Yeah, but remember how powerful their voice is. Sure. Those are the most powerful players are coming out of this statement. Sure. At a certain point in your presentation, you mentioned and you suggested to avoid patentable activities as far as possible, but what do you actually mean by patentable activities? Also, because if you're a company trying to innovate and compete, even if you're a free software company, you do have to do innovation and it, I mean, while some part of what you do is in your free software business, let's say, and you will give it freely, you might have other parts of what you do which are commercial and you have to defend from your competitors to be able to finance them. Oh, certainly, yeah. And as I said, I feel like I can maybe have written that slide better. I kind of, you know, my thinking there was, it was kind of like, you know, thinking like a wolf, but basically the patent rolls, I've been intrigued, you know, it's like looking at a, stand away from something there. It seems like basically, patent rolls are very slippery, right? They're very good at basically having no surface which one can use to litigate against them. So what, in that sense, what I was saying was, it was, we could learn from them, not necessarily by following their footsteps per se, but learn from what they do to make themselves have less of a surface for being, having litigation. And obviously, you know, if you want to innovate in space and you should, then you can, may better understand what your risk is, right? What your likelihood of being sued is. And there are a lot of different entities whether that's, I mean, you know, purchasing some kind of insurance, whether that's joining a patent pool and so forth to reduce your risk in that area. But I think that from sort of fundamental level, starting with the idea of, yeah, what is patentable, what will, what is most likely for someone to seize upon and sue you for, for what actions, I think that that should be a part of the equation in your mental calculus. Excellent. Any more questions? Comments? Is everyone still awake? I'm impressed? I probably wouldn't be. Oh. No, if there's no one else, I still have a second question. Yeah. Which is, I mean, you mostly focus on patent roles, but one of the reasons why you may want to patent or your patent portfolio, even if you are a free software company, is that you have commercial competitors that have been ruthlessly patenting everything it might use that to actually value you in court, so you might want to have some other patents related to your same field and try to negotiate something. So would that be, it may make sense and I mean, does that change anything if you're not going again, I mean being harassed by a patent role, but by a competitor? Sure, sure, and that's, it's a good question. In my experience, a lot of companies working in the free software space and open source space don't seek those kinds of patents. Instead they seek relationships with entities that do have patents or maybe they seek a few of them, but that in essence they try to participate in the sphere of what is patentable and dealing with patents by not being as involved in that space and seeking other ways to reduce their risk or reduce their chances of being sued. So hopefully that answers your question. Anybody else? A dying question, a thought. Okay, great, thanks Robert. Yeah, thank you guys.