Apache License 2.0 includes an express patent license. Each contributor grants users a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable license to their patent claims that are necessarily infringed by their contribution. If you start patent litigation over the work, the patent licenses you received for it end.
What the grant covers
Section 3 of the license says the grant covers patent claims a contributor can license and that are necessarily infringed by their contribution alone, or by their contribution combined with the work it was submitted to. It is narrower than a general promise not to sue. Claims that are not necessarily infringed by the contribution are outside it.
This matters because a plain copyright license, like the MIT text, says nothing explicit about patents. Some readers like Apache 2.0 for that reason. Whether the difference matters to you is a question for counsel, not for a blog post.
The termination condition
The license says that if you institute patent litigation alleging that the work, or a contribution embodied in it, infringes a patent, the patent licenses granted to you for that work end as of the date the litigation is filed. That includes a cross-claim or counterclaim.
For an acquirer, the practical point is simple. If a target company is in a patent dispute with an Apache licensed project, its right to the contributors' patent licenses for that work may be affected. That is worth a question in diligence.
Redistribution conditions
Separate from patents, section 4 asks anyone redistributing to:
- give recipients a copy of the license
- mark modified files with a notice that you changed them
- keep existing copyright, patent, trademark and attribution notices in the source
- carry forward the applicable attribution notices from any NOTICE file
For the notices work in detail, see Apache 2.0 NOTICE file checklist.
Questions to ask in diligence
- Which Apache 2.0 components are in the shipped product?
- Is the company or its affiliates involved in patent litigation over any of them?
- Are NOTICE files and license copies shipped with each release?
- Are modified files marked?
Compatibility is a separate topic
Mixing Apache 2.0 code with GPL code has its own rules, and they depend on the GPL version. See Apache 2.0 and GPL compatibility by version.
Safeguard does dependency scanning and SBOM generation across your repositories, and you can set policies and gates on what may merge. You can try a free scan of a public repository to see what a component inventory looks like.
Try it yourself
Open the inventory and find a component entry. Imagine adding a column for its license and notice requirements.
Click through it at your own pace, or open it full screen.
Quick check
Does MIT also grant patent rights?
The MIT text does not mention patents. Whether it implies a patent license is a legal question. Ask counsel if it matters to you.
Does the patent termination affect other users?
The text describes termination of patent licenses granted to the person who starts the litigation, for that work.
Sources
Last reviewed: 19 October 2026.
