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Not a bad idea. In fact, I’m the founder of a company specifically focussed on solving this problem.

http://brokensymmetry.typepad......ed-rd.html

Michael

This is sort of a living will or trust for the IP of the company. The beneficiary is the company when alive, and the non-profit when dead.

p.s

Most startups will fancy the thought that there is some buyer out there for their IP, and the investors will want to recoup some costs, however marginal.

Most experienced source code buyers understand that any code that comes without developers and one that has not been maintained for a while is usually unusable. (Enterprise buyers who insist on source code escrow only serve to enrich the coffers of Iron Mountain)

Meanwhile, hope springs eternal for the seller.. but by the time it is clear that there is no buyer for the asset - there is no engineering talent left to go with the code, and often no one left to negotiate with.

On the notion that the donors can get a tax deduction .. the US IRS wont even let you take a deduction for a used car to a charity unless the charity can show the exact value it got by disposing of the car. What is the value of donated IP ? A can of worms

how about this:

1) transfer the old IP into a NewCo structure
2) create an “open source” version of the IP usable by others
3a) make the open source GL free to use for non-commercial activities, and
3b) available on commercial basis via some paid component, perhaps a per-txn model, or default rev-share, or (more complex) minority equity stake.

if you can make 3b simple enough, you can use 2) & 3a) to crowdsource some new opportunities for the IP, and 3b) to monetize it, providing value back to the IP acquirer / owner.

devil is in the details of course, but some possibilities here perhaps…

http://www.uspto.gov/web/offic.....m#sect1490

“…In like manner any patentee or applicant may disclaim or dedicate to the public the entire term, or any terminal part of the term, of the patent granted or to be granted.”

It isn’t easy to sell other people’s ideas. People have taste in which intellectual property they are interested in and usually ideas of their own they would prefer to pursue. Generally other people’s ideas have to have overwhelming and obvious commercial value to interest other people, and IP from failed ventures already has an onus of “loser.”

Maybe the Salvation Army could open a site for discarded software.

abe @8, very few companies start by open-sourcing their code if what they are doing is unique. A common reason to later open source is that they are relying on something with a GPL license and they then have no choice.

Ooo! Code for a transactional e-commerce system for pet products! Wow! An automated ITIL database manager! Hey! Is a RISC processor?

What I’m thinking, is that if I don’t find investors, I might very well open source the core system (a social network for local bars and restaurants with upfront support for multiple domains (cities) all the places data is essentially a wiki with reviews).

Licensing also assumes there is some entity that can maintain the agreements.

Let’s also not lose sight of the fact that most startups that fail do so because their technology didn’t work as promised and/or the opportunity they targeted saw little value in it. No exactly ideal conditions upon which to license something.

This should be part of the partnership agreement of the company when its founded. There are several ways:

- put it on eBay and hope for the best
- open source everything
- give it to the creditors
- give it back to the founders

These considerations should become a standard when founding a company, I think.