Posting this here so others know. UC lawyers talke...
# shuttlem
Matthew Guthaus
06/07/2021, 11:42 PMPosting this here so others know. UC lawyers talked more with eFabless council and are still having problems coming to an agreement for my research to submit to the shuttle. The agreement as written gives eFabless rights to all the patents that UC owns in section 4.1 (they own a lot, not necessarily anything I'm submitting!) eFabless is willing to forgo the future part of it (shall vs will) which is somewhat a compromise. However, in section 4.3, there is a "Feedback" clause that they are also very concerned about because anything that was "discussed" implies a license as well. That is pretty broad... I'm sure that IBM would have an issue with this since they have a pretty big portfolio.
@User @User @User @User @User
Matthew Guthaus
06/07/2021, 11:49 PMBut I'd also point out that my memories are open source so nothing is stopping others from using them.
t
Tim Edwards
06/08/2021, 12:57 AMUnfortunately everything gets bogged down once you get the lawyers talking to each other. As far as I'm concerned, efabless' mission is to promote open source, and I can't see what interest we have in obtaining rights to UC (or anybody else's) patents. But I'm not the one advising efabless' lawyers.
👍 1
a
Art Scott
06/08/2021, 1:18 AMThanks.
m
Matthew Guthaus
06/08/2021, 2:36 AM@Tim Edwards And unfortunately we can't sign anything without them looking at it. :(
m
Mendy Furmanek
06/08/2021, 2:42 PM@Matthew Guthaus Can you please point me to the document you are referring to? Feedback clauses are common but it depends how they are constructed, ie they can be narrow or broad all depending on the exact language used.
m
Matthew Guthaus
06/08/2021, 4:07 PM@Mendy Furmanek @jeffdi will need to supply the most recent version of the user agreement for the MPW, or it can be seen by starting a new project and registering it.
Of course, I am still discussing with our council but it seems less likely after they actually talked to eFabless' council.
Matthew Guthaus
06/08/2021, 4:09 PMI believe this is it:
Copy code
Feedback. Any suggestions, enhancement requests, recommendations, or other feedback
regarding Company's products or services ("Feedback") that Customer provides, shares, or discloses to
Company is submitted to Company on a non-confidential basis (regardless of anything to the contrary in any
Feedback or any accompanying correspondence), and Customer, under all its intellectual property or other
applicable rights, hereby authorizes Company and its successors and licensees to exploit and sublicense such
Feedback in any manner without payment, attribution, restriction, or limitation of any kind.d
Dirk Koch
06/14/2021, 11:37 AMHello Matthew,
Have you got any news in this matter?
This is something that is impacting all universities participating in this run.
I think we may submit as individuals and yes all the IP we generated for our chip is free for everybody, but I will never get a signature that gives anybody full access to our entire IP pool.
m
Matthew Guthaus
06/14/2021, 1:10 PM@Dirk Koch We were able to come up with a solution, but I'm not sure if @jeffdi is going to make it the standard. I'm tagging him as he could answer that.
d
Dirk Koch
06/17/2021, 7:34 PMThanks first of all for your memory arrays that we integrated.
Will ping him.