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ZKS Patent Policy

The ZKS Working Group operates under a Royalty-Free (RF) mode to encourage widespread adoption, implementation, and verification of the Zero-Knowledge Sovereignty Standard.

1. Goal​

The goal of this policy is to ensure that the ZKS Specification can be implemented by any party - commercial, academic, or open-source - without the requirement to pay royalties or execute separate license agreements for "Essential Claims."

2. Licensing Commitment​

By participating in the ZKS Working Group or contributing to the ZKS Specification, all Contributors agree to grant to any Implementer a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide, perpetual, non-revocable license to their "Essential Claims."

"Essential Claims" are defined as those patent claims that are necessarily infringed by an implementation of the ZKS Specification. This license applies solely to the implementation of the Standard and does not extend to other proprietary features or codebases.

3. Non-Assertion Covenant​

To further clarify the openness of the standard:

The ZKS Working Group and its founding members pledge not to assert any patent rights against any entity solely for the act of making, using, selling, or distributing a compliant implementation of the ZKS Standard.

4. Reciprocity (Defensive Suspension)​

The patent license granted above allows for a "Defensive Suspension." If an Implementer initiates patent litigation against a Contributor claiming that the ZKS Specification infringes their patent, the royalty-free license granted to that Implementer may be suspended or terminated.

The text of the ZKS Specification itself is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). You are free to share and adapt the text, provided appropriate credit is given.

This policy is intended to align with the W3C Patent Policy and the principles of Open Standards. For specific legal inquiries, please contact the Working Group.