Through its Innovators’ Patent Agreement, Twitter has effectively licensed its patents to every company on the planet with a single condition: that they don’t themselves assert their patent rights by initiating litigation. What are the network effects of having a large numbers adopt the IPA? The result is that initiating a patent lawsuit would suddenly de-license a corporation from a massive number of IPA patents, thus significantly increasing the business risks of retaliatory lawsuits. Yahoo would not just have Facebook retaliating…it would be the whole of Silicon Valley. I can read Dick Costolo’s mind and see that this is the true agenda behind the IPA, and the moves by Union Square and TechStars to adopt the agreement for their portfolio companies are now realizing this vision.
