Twitter Vows Never To Weaponize Their Patents, Including Pull-To-Refresh

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Twitter has just vowed never to weaponize this.
Twitter has just vowed never to weaponize this.

Do you remember when Twitter patented the pull-to-refresh tech they acquired from Loren Brichter when they purchased Tweetie and made it their official, thereby effectively putting all the apps that use pull-to-refresh (like Tweetbot or even Facebook) in their legal crosshairs?

Pull-to-refresh inventor Loren Brichter said there was no reason to worry, and it seems like he was right, as Twitter has today announced an awesome initiative in which they have promised that their patents will only ever be used defensively… even if they sell them to another company down the line!

The initiative is called the Innovator’s Patent Agreement. Twitter explains:

The IPA is a new way to do patent assignment that keeps control in the hands of engineers and designers. It is a commitment from Twitter to our employees that patents can only be used for defensive purposes. We will not use the patents from employees’ inventions in offensive litigation without their permission. What’s more, this control flows with the patents, so if we sold them to others, they could only use them as the inventor intended.

This is a significant departure from the current state of affairs in the industry. Typically, engineers and designers sign an agreement with their company that irrevocably gives that company any patents filed related to the employee’s work. The company then has control over the patents and can use them however they want, which may include selling them to others who can also use them however they want. With the IPA, employees can be assured that their patents will be used only as a shield rather than as a weapon.

This is totally awesome and seems to deftly avoid the issues Andy Baio described in which his work was weaponized by Yahoo. I wish a lot more companies would do this.

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