eCars needs an open source hardware licensing scheme, please assist

[Michel Bauwens]

Tere Vaden writes:

 

the eCars - Now! (http://www.sahkoautot.fi/eng) community is about to launch publishing its material, and needs to adopt an open source hardware licensing scheme. Do you know of any
*actually functioning* open source hardware license? It seems that, for
instance, http://www.ohanda.org/
is still in its early stages. The eCars community would need a
BSD-style scheme, where manuals & instructions by the community
could be developed further by commercial entities (which are needed in
order to bear the costs of registration, complying to EU directives,
etc.).

All experiences & insights welcome!

[Roberto Gilli]

Hi,

I am not an expert in Intellectual Property but I studied a bit this problem.
My knowledge is basically the Italian and European laws on patents but, as far as I know, the US laws are the same.

The main idea is "just publish" and be able to demostrate the publishing.

In fact, you can patent an idea only if nowhere in the world is using it or if it is not published (in scientific articles, papers, webs, older patents etc).
So the simply action of publishing is a way to create a "open patent".
Of course this is not a CreativeCommons licence, it is a sort of "scientific open idea": if someone takes the idea and innovates it somewhere, he/she can patent that innovation (but only the single innovation and only if it is really "innovating" the published idea). So the "Freedom3" of the OH&A is missing.

The trademark approach of the OH&A is interesting to labeling the idea but I don't think that can can a real effect in the world of patents.

The idea of "scientific publishing" is in too naive / candid?

ciao
roberto