NEW GROUP ADDRESSES OPEN SOURCE PATENT ISSUE
A new organization hopes to eliminate one of the major obstacles to
adoption of open source technology: concern over patent and royalty
disputes over shared code. The Open Invention Network (OIN), which
includes IBM, Sony, Royal Philips Electronics, and Linux distributors
Red Hat and Novell, will acquire and freely share patents that
organizers hope will encourage broader adoption of open source tools,
particularly Linux. Any organization that agrees not to assert its
patents over those who have licenses with OIN will be permitted to use
OIN patents for free. The business model for OIN represents a new
arrangement in which patents are shared to promote the underlying
Linux technology. Industry analyst Richard Doherty said, "A lot of
lawyers are going to throw their hands up and ask, 'How do we make
money from this?'" The answer, he said, is that they might not.
ZDNet, 10 November 2005
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-5943781.html
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