Re: On holy wars, and a plea for peace

From: missingterms
Date: Wed Oct 10 2018 - 20:46:43 EST


Three avenues to rescind GPLv2 property. RAP strategy added.


Here's a case in NY where a Software distributor agreement violated New York's Rule Against Perpetuities
McAllister Software Systems, Inc. v. Henry Schein, Inc., No. 06-0093, 2008 WL 922328 (E.D. Mo. April 2, 2008)

So we see that atleast one court in an important* jurisdiction is applying the RAP with regards to intellectual property.

So:
Attack 1: license rescission under property law (non-exclusive gratuity for which no consideration was given, and no utterances to irrevokability by grantor vis-a-vis licensee uttered, thus can be rescinded at will).
Attack 2: license rescission citing no term-of-years, thus at-will licensing (until the parties no-longer agree). (This one works in the UK)

Jurisdictional attack: if defendant claims license is perpetual [Or you could simply use it as an alternative argument from the get-go]
Attack 2b: license is a nullity (void from it's inception) due to RAP.

*(Wallstreet is in NY. I wonder if they use and/or modify linux kernel for anything?)