Open Source Patent Grants

GPL has implicit patent license.

What are the implications of using a patented feature of an open source project?

Even without an explicit grant, distributing a product includes an implied license to use related patents. So even under an open source license with no specific patent clause, a company would have a hard time releasing something open source, then suing users for patent violations for using that same something. (They might still be able to sue for violating those same patents in other ways.)

Its open-source. Maybe patents don't apply? They're not selling anything.

So this is like the GPL for patents?

Is the MIT license considered to come with an implicit patent grant?

The GPL version 3 includes a similar clause. You don't have to give up your patents. You just have to license them to anyone who has rights to use the code from a copyright perspective. If I understand it correctly, this gives the GPL sharper teeth, since someone who violates the GPL not only loses the distribution/derivative rights from the copyright license, but also the patent license.

Some lawyers think the language used in the MIT license implies a patent grant limited to the use of the licensed software. They think it would be difficult for the licensor to give a license on the software from one hand, and claim a patent infringement on the same software from the other hand, but as far as I know, this was never tested in court.

The BSD license does not contain a patent grant, so it's technically possible that you'll have to pay to use this software in the future even though it's under the BSD license. I'd really like to see a switch to the Apache license, which does contain a patent grant.

FOSS does not magically circumvent patents.