While the BSD-3-Clause
is well known and thoroughly discussed here and elsewhere, I have been unable to find much information on precisely how the additional patent stipulation in the BSD-3-Clause-Clear
might change the license terms (if at all).
The BSD-3 Clear is essentially the same as the BSD-3, except for the line (following the 3rd clause):
NO EXPRESS OR IMPLIED LICENSES TO ANY PARTY'S PATENT RIGHTS ARE GRANTED BY THIS LICENSE.
The BSD-3-Clause
is my default license for my projects, but ever since I discovered the "Clear" version, I've been using that.
My understanding was that it added additional protections to BSD-3
licence against potential malicious patent bullying/trolls. As in, if you use or modify code licensed under the BSD-3-Clause-Clear
, you would not be able to patent that modified code (and by extension, enforce that patent against other derivations or contributors).
There have been some great threads here explaining what exactly is meant by "express grant of patent rights" clauses in licenses (notably Apache 2.0), but I still have trouble understanding what patent rights mean.
Can someone really dumb it down for me?
- What does that clause mean?
- How does it differ from the express grant of patent rights in licenses like Apache 2.0?
- Does it fundamentally change anything about the original BSD-3-Clause?