Twitter Announces Inventor-Friendly Patent Agreement

Twitter has introduced the Innovator’s Patent agreement (IPA), an initiative which it claims will help engineers and designers at the company retain some control over their patented works.

Announced in the company’s engineering blog, the IPA is described as a commitment to only use patents in defensive circumstances, unless the inventor gives express permission for use in offensive litigation.

Reworking the system

“This is a significant departure from the current state of affairs in the industry,” said Twitter’s vice president of engineering, Adam Messinger, in the blog post. “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.”

The finer details of the agreement point out that patents will be used defensively when companies attempt or threaten to sue Twitter for infringement, and when an infringing company has been the aggressor in a patent suit within the last ten years.

Twitter’s decision to give employees greater say over the use of their inventions is motivated by the numerous patent battles between technology and social media giants (including Yahoo, Google, Samsung and Apple), which Messinger suggests impede innovation.

The IPA is consequently presented as a solution to this issue, and is offered up to any other parties interested in inventor-friendly patent agreements. Should a Twitter patent be sold to another company, the IPA requires the buyer to use it defensively, unless otherwise permitted by the original designer or engineer, who retains this particular authority.

Messinger notes that the current draft of the agreement is not definitive and will be discussed with other companies before being implemented some time later this year.

Are you a patent expert?  Try our quiz