Biomedical Engineering Reference
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the patent owner for applications beyond nonprofi t research. In return, users
may be asked to provide usage metrics, patent marking, and attribution and
pay a fee or royalty as determined by the patent owner [22].
The research nonassertion pledge is a commitment by a company not to
assert its patents against anyone (whether an individual scientist or an institu-
tion) for engaging in activities related only to qualifi ed nonprofi t research. This
is intended to enable the kind of research that takes place at universities and
other academic, government, and nonprofi t institutions. Patent owners are
encouraged to consider adopting this policy widely to cover all their patents.
However, a patent owner has ultimate control over what patents to dedicate
to the research nonassertion pledge. Therefore, a patent owner may pledge all
or some of its patents under the research nonassertion pledge. It can do so by
providing a list of patents to be included or conversely by stating an overall
policy but listing patents excluded from the pledge.
To promote use of sustainable technologies requires adoption and applica-
tion of the technology in the real world, which goes beyond basic research.
Therefore, a license to use the technologies in real-world applications, includ-
ing some commercial ones, is needed. Companies wishing to provide such
licenses may either adopt the Creative Commons model patent license that is
available through the innovation exchange or offer their own. The criteria for
inclusion of a patent license offer in the exchange, whether based on the model
patent license or a custom one, is that the terms and conditions of the license
must be fully specifi ed and made publicly available and the offer must be a
valid offer that can be accepted by anyone without the need for further nego-
tiation. These two criteria constitute what Creative Commons calls a “public
license offer,” the primary benefi ts of which are its transparency and low
transaction costs.
The transparency and nondiscriminatory terms permit entrepreneurs and
potential adopters to plan and make early decisions about technology adop-
tion, while the low transaction costs allow a patent owner to offer a license
widely without incurring large administrative and negotiation costs. These two
factors can bridge the otherwise diffi cult and unpredictable license negotiation
process, which can deter technology adopters or trigger economically wasteful
design-around attempts. The history of innovation highlights the value of the
unanticipated uses of a technology. Both the research nonassertion pledge and
the public license offers are options for not only promoting and widely dis-
seminating technologies that can solve global sustainability challenges but also
stimulating interest in broader or unanticipated applications of existing
technologies.
Owners do not abandon their patents under the exchange; they retain
the ownership of the patent rights, with full ability to enforce the terms of the
license or nonassertion. If the user is found to violate the conditions of the
license, the patent owner retains the full right to pursue remedies and damages
under the law.
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