Daniel Hahn
Aug 24, 2017 · 2 min read

Bit late to the party, but in my opinion this doesn’t really matter for startups.

The most important thing is getting your product off the ground, period. Use whatever technology that gets you there as fast as possible.

Yes, it may be flagged when you get acquired. But that is in the future, and assumes you already have a great product. You may not even get there — your only chance is making your product work.

Even if you get there, the potential acquirer may or may not care about patent litagation with Facebook. You don’t know yet.

Even if they do, the worst-case risk is that you have to rewrite your code. Which, in the scope of a “multi-mullion exit”, is a rather minor issue.

As a startup you’ll have to take many risks to get a product on the way. If you don’t, you’re likely to fail. And many of them will be much bigger wagers than the React license.

I kind of agree that the clause is unnecessary broad, and about the “community” issue. However, I assume that it won’t matter much to the big players will care to much.

Assume that you’re Amazon and you’re suing Facebook for a patent violation. You will not lose the license for React, you’ll just lose the patent grant. Which means they can now counter-sue you for using of any patented technology in React (whatever that may be). To which you will counter-sue them for something else. In the end you’ll settle.

On a side note, Facebook can always sue you for violations of their patents, whether you use React or not. So if you use a different piece of software that does essentially the same thing, they may still go after you. And, assuming that you just started patent litigation with them, they’re certain to try.

The sad fact is that the whole patent thing is fundamentally broken.

If you go up as the little guy against a major player, they’ll probably screw you, React or not — they’ll find something.

If you’re a big player going up against a big player, it’ll be arsenal against arsenal. The React grant will be a side battle at best.

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    Daniel Hahn

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