The Defensive Patent License (DPL) is a patent license proposed by Jason Schultz and Jennifer Urban, directors of the Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic at the University of California, Berkeley as a patent licensing equivalent of the GPL copyright license.^[1][2][3]

It requires entities licensing their patents under the DPL to license all of their patents under the DPL, with free licenses granted to all other DPL participants.^[4] DPL participants remain free to launch patent lawsuits against non-participants.

DPL 1.0^[5] was published on November 16, 2013, and a "birthday" celebration held at the Internet Archive.^[6] The Internet Archive was designated as the fiscal umbrella organization until it has its own non-profit entity. It was launched on February 28, 2014 at a conference in Berkeley.^[7]