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What does "to the public" mean in this instance? Are they going to an open source patent pool or something?


From TFA: "Sable has agreed to dedicate its entire patent portfolio to the public. This means that Sable will tell the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office that it gives up all of its legal rights to its patent portfolio. Sable can never again use these patents to sue for infringement; they can never again use these patents to try to make a quick buck."


I'm confused that CF says they also were granted royalty free rights to the patents...how can they cloudflare have specific rights yet all the patents are public?


You're right, it's redundant. Cloudflare gets the sane rights under the dedication as they do from the license.


> Are they going to an open source patent pool or something?

All patents are "open for public access" [1]. And once they age past their "expiration date" (currently twenty years from earliest date of filing) they become "public property".

What Sable is doing is giving up the ability to restrict others based on the patents content's before those patents would normally have expired anyway. So in effect they are having the patents "expire early" -- which makes the contents of each become "public property".

[1] https://www.uspto.gov/patents/search




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