🦓IP Lifecycle Policy

Voluntary contributions, intellectual property protection, attribution licenses, data residency, and member obligations towards Foundation.

This section describes the Contributions License Agreements applicable, when natural persons and legal bodies (read Organisations) make any contributions to any project on the Open Constitution Network, in the form of voluntary submission of I.P.

The submission of the I.P. to the Open Constitution Network(I.P Estate) takes place through several platforms maintained as part of the Network’s Programs.

If you are a natural person, You shall become a member of the Open Constitution Network by activating an E-residency lease, which gives you the right to manage your interaction with the Open Constitution AI(e.g. accessing the I.P Estate, managing data residency, accessing network resources, participating in the self-governance model of the A.I).

If your submission of the I.P. is on behalf of a legal body, then you must register a tenancy lease for the legal body. Your organisation/institution/public authority/union/group shall become a member of the Open Constitution Network by activating an E-Tenancy lease, which gives you the right to manage your interaction with the Open Constitution AI(e.g. accessing the I.P Estate, managing data residency, accessing network resources, participating in the self-governance model of the A.I)

"You" (or "Your") shall mean the copyright owner or legal entity authorized by the copyright owner who is signing the Contributor License Agreement with the Foundation.

Contributor shall mean any natural person(legal person) legal body(legal persons) or machine entity.

Natural person(an individual contributor) Sign CLA here.

Legal body(corporate contributor) Sign CLA here.

For legal entities, the entity making a Contribution and all other entities that control, are controlled by, or are under common control with that entity are considered to be a single Contributor.

For the purposes of this definition, "control" means (i) the power, direct or indirect, to cause the direction or management of such entity, whether by contract or otherwise, or (ii) ownership of fifty per cent (50%) or more of the outstanding shares, or (iii) beneficial ownership of such entity.

E Tenant - OC Network Tenancy Member, (hereinafter referred to as ''E-Tenant'')

Intellectual Property - IP

Intellectual Property Rights - IPR

Open Constitution Network - OC Network

Contributors License Agreement - OC CLA

ARTICLE 1: INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY CLASSIFICATIONS:

1.1 The "E-Tenant Intellectual Property" means:

(i) all products and processes of patentable inventions, improvements and discoveries, conceived solely by one or more employees, staff or affiliates of the E-Tenant, prior to the effective date of joining the OC Network, by signing the Open Constitution Network E Tenancy Access Agreement.

The E-Tenant Intellectual Property will be owned solely by the E-Tenant and will not otherwise be subject to the terms and conditions of the Open Source Policy of the OC Network unless the E-Tenant signs a Voluntary Contributor License Agreement(CLA) in order to contribute the ''E-Tenant Intellectual Property'' to the Foundation's repository of Open Source IP on the OC Network.

1.2 '’Affiliated Beneficiary Intellectual Property’' means:

(i) all products and processes of patentable inventions, improvements and discoveries, conceived solely by an affiliated beneficiary, prior to the effective date of joining the OC Network, by signing the Open Constitution Network E-Tenancy Access Agreement

The Affiliated Beneficiary Intellectual Property will be owned solely by the beneficiary, affiliated to the E-Tenant and will not otherwise be subject to the terms and conditions of the Open Source Policy of the OC Network unless the affiliated beneficiary signs a Voluntary Contributor License Agreement(CLA) in order to contribute the ''Affiliated Beneficiary Intellectual Property'' to the Foundation's repository of Open Source IP on the OC Network

ARTICLE 2: CONTRIBUTOR INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS CLARIFICATIONS:

2.1 The "Contributor Intellectual Property" means:

(i) all products and processes of patentable inventions, improvements and discoveries, which are conceived solely by the contributor, prior to the effective date of signing a Contributor License Agreement(hereinafter referred to as OC CLA) on any of the Project or Program on the OC network.

(ii) "Contribution" shall mean any original work of authorship, including any modifications or additions to an existing work, that is intentionally and voluntarily submitted by a Contributor to the Foundation or to the OC Network for inclusion in, or documentation of, any of the projects or programs owned or managed by Foundation (the "Work").

(iii) For the purposes of this definition, "submitted" means any form of electronic, verbal, or written communication sent by the contributor to Foundation or its representatives, including but not limited to communication on electronic mailing lists, source code control systems, and issue tracking systems that are managed by, or on behalf of, Foundation for the purpose of discussing and improving the Work, but excluding communication that is conspicuously marked or otherwise designated in writing by Contributor as "Not a Contribution."

2.2 Grant of Copyright License. Subject to the terms and conditions of the OC CLA, Contributor hereby grants to the Foundation and to all members of the OC Network a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable copyright license to reproduce, prepare derivative works of, publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense, and distribute Contributor's Contributions and such derivative works.

2.3 Grant of Patent License. Subject to the terms and conditions of the OC CLA, Contributor hereby grants to Foundation and to all members of OC Network 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, and otherwise transfer the Work, where such license applies only to those patent claims licensable by Contributor that are necessarily infringed by Contributor's Contribution(s) alone or by combination of Your Contribution(s) with the Work to which such Contribution(s) was submitted. If any entity institutes patent litigation against You or any other entity (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that your Contribution, or the Work to which you have contributed, constitutes a direct or contributory patent infringement, then any patent licenses granted to that entity under the OC CLA for that Contribution or Work shall terminate as of the date such litigation is filed.

2.4 Contributor represents that he/she/they are legally entitled to grant the licenses mentioned in 2.1 (ii)(iii).

If the employer(s) of a natural person contributor has rights to ''Contributor intellectual property'' that the contributor creates that includes their Contributions, a Contributor represents that he/she/they have received permission to make Contributions on behalf of that employer, that Contributor's employer has waived such rights for their Contributions to Foundation, or that Contributor's employer has executed a separate Corporate Contributor License Agreement with Foundation.

2.5 Contributor represents that each of their Contributions is an original creation.

Contributor represents that their Contribution submissions include complete details of any third party intellectual property license or other restrictions (including, but not limited to, related patents and trademarks) of which he/she/they are personally aware and which are associated with any part of their Contributions.

2.6 Contributors are not expected to provide support for their Contributions, except to the extent he/she/they desire to provide support. Contributors may provide support for free, for a fee, or not at all. Unless required by applicable law such as data processing laws, or health data compliances or agreed to in writing, Contributors provide their Contributions on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied, including, without limitation, any warranties or conditions of TITLE, NON INFRINGEMENT, MERCHANTABILITY, or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

ARTICLE 3: FOUNDATION INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

3.1 The ''Foundation Intellectual Property'' means:

(i) all products and processes of inventions, improvements and discoveries, whether or not patentable, which are conceived solely by one or more employees, volunteers, ordinary members or Board or Council members of the Foundation,

Or

(ii) all products and processes of inventions, improvements and discoveries, whether or not patentable, which are conceived solely by one or more employees, volunteers, ordinary members or Board or Council members of the Foundation, as a consequence of the constitution of a Project or a Program by the E-Tenant Member or one or more of its affiliated beneficiaries on the OC Network,

Or

(iii) all grant of Intellectual Property rights in connection to all products and processes of patentable inventions, improvements and discoveries, which are conceived solely by a contributor to the OC Network, pursuant to terms of OC CLA by the contributor on the OC Network.

Contributor Intellectual property remains the private property of the contributor but the Grant of patent and copyrights license is as described in Articles 2.2 and 2.3 above and therefore these intellectual property rights become a part of Foundation Intellectual property.

And

which are excluded from the coverage under Articles 1.1 and 1.2

And

Open Constitution Network Intellectual Property(IP), further described below in Article 3.2

The Foundation Intellectual Property will be owned solely by the Foundation.

3.2 The "Open Constitution Network Intellectual Property(IP)" means

(i) all products and processes of inventions, improvements and discoveries which are conceived by one or more employees, volunteers, ordinary members or Board members of the Foundation

AND

(ii) all products and processes of inventions, improvements and discoveries that are conceived by affiliated beneficiaries of the OC Network E Tenancy Program

AND

which are excluded from the coverage under Articles 1.1 and 1.2

AND

which are excluded from the coverage under Articles 2.1 and 3.1

“Open Constitution Network Intellectual Property(IP)” is owned and maintained by the Foundation, conditional to a release and reduction to practice into open source and will be subject to the terms and conditions of this Policy, Open Constitution E Tenancy Agreement or other Agreement(s) to be entered into between the parties of the OC Network E-Tenancy Program, exclusively for the purpose of grant of Intellectual Property rights to the Association, and individual Contributor License Agreement(s) between Foundation and its voluntary members.

ARTICLE 4 Intellectual Property Protection:

(i.) Members recognize that the Foundation has an obligation to utilize the knowledge and technology generated by the Foundation’s Project(s) and Program(s) on the OC Network in a manner that maximizes societal benefit and economic development and which provides for the education on open source objectives and advocacy of guiding principles of the OC Network.

(ii.) As such all Open Constitution Network IP developed as part of this Agreement will be licensed under an applicable Open Source License, mentioned on the license registry of Open Constitution license (lists of open source, copyleft licenses, compatible with Foundation’s Open Source Policy) and published as it is created for the benefit of human society.

For the purposes of this policy, an Open Source License means a license that satisfies the criteria defined by the Free Software Foundation, the Open Source Initiative the Open Source Hardware Association, and the Open Constitution Licensing Initiative as of the date of this agreement.

ARTICLE 5. Intellectual Property Licenses:

Open Constitution Network IP will be primarily owned or vested in the Foundation, and whose open source life cycle shall be maintained on the network, conditional to the consequence that;

All Open Constitution Network IP created as part of this agreement will be licensed using an Open Source License.

a. Foundation will license all documentation created as part of this project under an appropriate open source license e.g. The Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International Public License (Creative Commons — Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International — CC BY-SA 4.0) or the GNU Free Documentation License version 1.3 (GNU Free Documentation License v1.3) or the Open Constitution license.

b. Foundation will license all software created as part of this project under an appropriate open source license e.g. GNU Free Documentation License version 1.3 (GNU Free Documentation License v1.3), Apache Licenses, Mozilla Licenses or the Open Constitution license.

c. Foundation will license all hardware created as part of this project under the CERN Open Hardware License v1.2 (Wiki · Projects / CERN Open Hardware Licence · Open Hardware Repository) or the Open Constitution license.

d. Any other terms of this Agreement or any exclusive license negotiated under this agreement notwithstanding, Muellners Foundation retains the right to perform research even if such research activities overlap the Project and whether or not such research is supported either by the network tenant or by any third party.

e. The Release and Acceptable Usage of the Open Constitution Network IP are in accordance with the Foundation’s Open Source Policy and Acceptable Usage Policy.