Twitter: 'We Promise To Not Be a Patent Troll' 103
Fluffeh writes "Twitter today unveiled a bold new commitment that will be made in writing to its employees — the company will not use any patents derived from employee inventions in offensive lawsuits without the inventor's permission. Twitter has written up a draft of what it calls the 'Innovator's Patent Agreement,' or IPA, which encourages its developers to invent without the fear that their inventions will be used for nefarious purposes. 'The IPA is a new way to do patent assignment that keeps control in the hands of engineers and designers. It is a commitment from Twitter to our employees that patents can only be used for defensive purposes,' Messinger wrote. 'We will not use the patents from employees' inventions in offensive litigation without their permission. What's more, this control flows with the patents, so if we sold them to others, they could only use them as the inventor intended.'"
Re:Worthless (Score:5, Informative)
Why does something nefarious have to be going on? Because it's a corporation? I don't see what they have to gain from dishonesty. It's not like the average Twitter user could even define intellectual property, let alone care about it. It may seem strange, but sometimes people do things because they think it's right.
Also, 'amoral' means ethically neutral or ignorant. An act of manipulation is generally considered immoral, which means not moral.
Re:"Don't be evil" (Score:5, Informative)
I searched (admittedly briefly) for a case of Google suing for patents the other day and couldn't find one. There was one older case of Motorola suing Apple for a hardware patent. They're still pretty damn well behaved as corporations go in my books.
Re:contrary to articles of incorporation (Score:3, Informative)
twitter is not a publicly traded company.