What is the difference between the Apache License v2.0 and the BSD+Patent License?

Question

To my current understandig, both the Apache License version 2.0 and the BSD+Patent grant you a license to any patent that the software is using.

In what situation is the BSD+Patent license preferred over the Apache License version 2.0, which is far more widely used?

To complicate matters, it seems that Golang uses a different version than the BSD+Patent published by the OSI. So what makes this modified version better than anything else?

Golang:

Additional IP Rights Grant (Patents)

"This implementation" means the copyrightable works distributed by Google as part of the Go project.

Google hereby grants to You a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable (except as stated in this section) patent license to make, have made, use, offer to sell, sell, import, transfer and otherwise run, modify and propagate the contents of this implementation of Go, where such license applies only to those patent claims, both currently owned or controlled by Google and acquired in the future, licensable by Google that are necessarily infringed by this implementation of Go. This grant does not include claims that would be infringed only as a consequence of further modification of this implementation. If you or your agent or exclusive licensee institute or order or agree to the institution of patent litigation against any entity (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that this implementation of Go or any code incorporated within this implementation of Go constitutes direct or contributory patent infringement, or inducement of patent infringement, then any patent rights granted to you under this License for this implementation of Go shall terminate as of the date such litigation is filed.

BSD+Patent:

Copyright (c)

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.

2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.

Subject to the terms and conditions of this license, each copyright holder and contributor hereby grants to those receiving rights under this license a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable (except for failure to satisfy the conditions of this license) patent license to make, have made, use, offer to sell, sell, import, and otherwise transfer this software, where such license applies only to those patent claims, already acquired or hereafter acquired, licensable by such copyright holder or contributor that are necessarily infringed by:

(a) their Contribution(s) (the licensed copyrights of copyright holders and non-copyrightable additions of contributors, in source or binary form) alone; or

(b) combination of their Contribution(s) with the work of authorship to which such Contribution(s) was added by such copyright holder or contributor, if, at the time the Contribution is added, such addition causes such combination to be necessarily infringed. The patent license shall not apply to any other combinations which include the Contribution.

Except as expressly stated above, no rights or licenses from any copyright holder or contributor is granted under this license, whether expressly, by implication, estoppel or otherwise.

DISCLAIMER

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

Answer 1

I do not see an objective reason why the BSD+Patent license would be better than the Apache 2.0 license, but there can be a ton of personal, subjective reasons.

There is (at least) one objective reason where the BSD+Patent license can be seen as inferior to the Apache 2.0 license, and that is when patent litigation is started.

The patent license of the Apache 2.0 license explicitly terminates when litigation over any patent held by the contributor is started, but that is not the case for the BSD+Patent license. This means that if company A claims that you are infringing one of their patents, you can not deny them the use of your patents if they are licensed under the BSD+Patent license. This can give A a big competitive advantage over you.

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As for the patent license of Golang, I am not convinced that that license is really better. Except maybe for Google.

First of all, it only covers patents from Google. If someone else creates a derived work by adding code that is covered by a patent of their own, they don't automatically grant a patent license when distributing under the Golang license.

Secondly, and I hope I am wrong about this, the patent license appears to be written such that it only covers the code when it is part of Golang and gets silently removed when the code is modified to implement a different language.