Twitter is Putting Patents Back in the Hands of Inventors

Amid these massive patent battles being fought among technology companies in the US and across the world, Twitter aims to disrupt the field by introducing a patent agreement that would place the authority over the patents it has claims to to its own employees instead. A wide adoption of this policy would have a wide-ranging effect on how patents are used especially across the technology industry. Whereas many have called for the US patent system to be overhauled, this simple agreement may change the game without having to change the rules.

One popular patent that Twitter has applied for is the pull to refresh method invented by Loren Brichter to refresh the content in Tweetie, the popular Twitter app that Twitter eventually acquired. Brichter filed the patent as a Twitter employee in 2010 and is still currently pending.

According to Twitter,

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 bold move by Twitter which would only work if other companies get on board. TechStars and Union Square Ventures are already on board but at this moment the incubator and venture capital firm are hardly patent forces to reckon with. This needs the support of major players such as Apple, Yahoo, and IBM.

In Indonesia though, software patents are not recognized, only physical methods and hardware innovations are eligible to be patented.

An interesting take on Twitter's patent agreement was brought up by Robin Malau over email in which he wonders whether this can be applied to the music industry as well. This particularly intriguing discussion however, would be a subject for another post.