Update (9/22/17): Facebook will license React 16 under MIT. However, no word yet about patent grants for React. If Facebook fails to grant patents, then React falls into the same miserable rabbit hole as GraphQL. If React 16 fails to grant patents, this just got a whole lot worse.

Update 2: React may not be an issue, but GraphQL is!

Update: More about Preact/Vue/Inferno useage at the bottom

As Gertrude Stein might admonish, “there’s no there there.”

The Internet (aka Hacker News) worked itself into another tizzy over Facebook’s React patent retaliation clause. Let’s run though a quick primer on patent law, React’s patent license, and the implications of the clause. By the end, I think you’ll agree that the clause amounts to a paper tiger.

🐯 Rawr.

(For background, I am a member of the Arizona and California bars and practiced in IP law / patent prosecution, but I love business and software even more. I now primarily write software (React/GraphQL/Elixir) for my car dealership as we ready version 2!)