Michael Klotsche raised a serious issue that has to be answered if we intend to develop open source goods: how can open source designs be protected against patent misuse?

I asked this question Marcin Jakubowski from the Factor e Farm where open source hardware is developed:

About protecting from patents - our policy here is to not worry about it - because what you already publish is in the public domain, if you make that the applicable license. Now, what about improvements? I think open innovation always finds new solutions, so if someone patents an improvement, it doesn't matter. It is not worth spending the energy on protecting the work. There are always many new forks to take, so our opinion here is that worrying about protection is part of a mindset of scarcity, and we should move beyond that by DIY production and mindset of abundance. Most people don't have DIY interests (today), so protection may be the only answer for them.

In a future economy - our main goal is that as many people become physical producers as possible. Patents do not apply to private production! So if you have a fab lab, it doesn't matter if something is patented. In the future, once we are finished developing the fab lab, it will be affordable to those who want to use it. [...]

Any opinions or legal knowledge on this?

[Update]

18.06.2009: To Patent or Not to Patent a Free Energy Technology