The MPL and Patents
The MPL also deals with patents much more thoroughly than any preceding open source license.
To review, a patent is a grant under power of law of the right to exclude others from making, using, selling, offering to sell, or importing certain specifically claimed inventions. The claims in a patent can be licensed to others. The MPL actually defines Patent Claims more precisely as “including, without limitation, method, process, and apparatus claims in any patent Licensable by grantor.” (MPL section 1.10.1.) This is consistent with the types of utility patents actually granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Fortunately, these technical distinctions among types of claims won't be important for us here.
First, the
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