Re: A Little Linguistic Playground

On 03/25/1999, Llew Gibbons <lgibbons[_at_]sprintmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Tue, 23 Mar 1999, Mark Lemley <mlemley[_at_]mail.law.utexas.edu> wrote:
> >
> > A license does not release the work into the public domain. First,
> > it must be granted to a specific party.
>
> Why do you contend that the license must be to a specific party,
> as opposed to a general license to all the world or substantial subset
> thereof.
>

OK, I confess I'm speculating here -- and I am certainly not a contracts scholar. But a license is a contract, and my dim recollection of first year contracts is that you can't enter into an executory contract with the whole world, including people yet unborn. So either such a "license" would be an abandonment or estoppel -- subjects others have already discussed -- or it would constitute merely an offer of contract (perhaps one accepted by detrimental reliance?).

Am I wrong on my contract law?

Mark Lemley
<mlemley[_at_]mail.law.utexas.edu> Received on Fri Mar 26 1999 - 15:19:12 GMT