I am trying to understand how Apache License affects patents. In regards to the Apache website http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 section 3, am I right to say for the first part that it is saying the licensee is allowed to do pretty much anything with the patent?
In the latter part, is it saying that if a licensor decides to sue someone who is infringing over their patent they will lose all their patents or is it talking about the licensee?
The first part of Section 3 states that all contributors give you, the user, the right to use the software under whatever software patents are in effect, without any further obligations (including license fees). This applies both individually, where the contributor personally owns a software patent, and collectively, where a combination of contributed works is considered protected by part or all of a patent.
The second part of Section 3 states that, if you, the user of the software, bring suit against anyone who has a patent claim to all or part of the software, your license (and therefore your right to use the software in the manner described in the license) terminates automatically.
Collectively, these two clauses are intended to give you and the project contributors protection against patent problems, by making such protection a condition of contributing to the project or using the software.
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