Five Linux Companies Buy Software Patents

An anonymous reader writes "In order to protect themselves against patent grabbing 'trolls,' major Linux companies are buying software patents through a nonprofit company called Open Invention Network. This nonprofit company will then offer royalty-free licenses to companies and individuals that agreed not to assert their own patents."

anti-patent

[doyoulikegoatseeee]

The idea of an anti-patent patent trust is as old as the hills, but to see this much corporate clout behind it was unthinkable not five years ago. It feels like there's been a sea-change and I like it. More important than helping IBM and Sony fight Microsoft, if this idea gained momentum it could seriously roll back a lot of the current technical stagnation on account of software/algorithm patents.

Color me cautiously hopeful.

Fried air market

[Nuffsaid]

Patents aside, I wonder how much of current global economy is fueled by this kind of nonsense. $A_COMPANY gettin money from $ANOTHER_COMPANY, as long as $A_COMPANY's lawyers don't do $LEGAL_ACTION to $ANOTHER_COMPANY's lawyers while they are litigating $YET_ANOTHER_COMPANY about what they shouldn't have done to $A_COMPANY according to an agreement which wasn't to be disclosed except in front of $REGULATOR_BODY's lawyers... and so on ad nauseam. Maybe a lawyer could find a sense (wrong, of course) in the previous sentence, but it was intended as an example of the insanity of an out-of-control system where wealth is exchanged on the basis of what one doesn't do.

The Best Way to Fix Things...

[TheZorch]

It is to rewrite current Copyright Laws into a system that diferenciates between different forms of Intellectual Property, and restrict Patants to actual physical objects and not abstract things like software.

I know this is just a pipe dream, they'd sooner be selling parkas in Hades before this happens but hear me out.

Restructure the Copyright Laws into different sets of rules that effectively protect each different variety of IP:

* Print Published Copyrights - These rules and laws would over only cover printed materials; ie. magazines, newspapers, books, etc.
* Digital Media Copyrights - These rules and laws would only cover digial media like videos, audio, and images, but not software.
* Software Copyrights - There rules and laws would cover software, and allows similar software to be written in competition as long as its different enough from the original product. Thus protecting innovation.
* Name Copyrights - Would replace the current Trademark system.
* Public Domain Bylaws - These would be a set of rules that determine if and when a certain IP becomes Public Domain, and enforces that status to prevent a company from cashing in on a Public Domain item in the future. Basically, if MS stops supporting an OS like it has with Win95/98 and soon ME then by the rules in the Bylaws that software would become Public Domain and MS cannot enforce any copyright protection on those products. Adding a provision that requires all Public Domain software to become Open Source would be wonderful.

Administering these new Copyrights in a way that mimicks the GPL would also be a good way to fix things. That way a vendor/publisher would be able to select the kind of copyright they need. Current laws are too narrow for the broad range of products out there today.

So how long will this last?

[mothas]

What concerns me about this is what happens when a company changes its mind.
There have historically been no shortage of bad actors (ex: SCO, Rambus, MSFT, etc). I can envision a scenario where a company might join until their encumbered tech gets into the guts of Linux, then change hands/die off/spin off divisions/etc. so that the entity bound by the agreement is no longer the one holding the patent rights.
Even IBM's affection for Linux is unlikely to be eternal - are they equipping themselves with a big 'off' switch to use later?
This plan looks to have some nasty ethical & financial failure modes. Of course, I'm not a lawyer and haven't seen the details in any case, so my fears may be groundless.

A Tale of Two Dudes

[smittyoneeach]

Dude A is a MicroSoft sales rep. He was foaming at the mouth about new workflow solutions pouring out of Redmond. I asserted that there haven't be any new ideas in computer science in decades; the real issues are organizational, not technical.
Dude A loudly protested that there was constant innovation.
So I asked Dude B, who is among the hardest-core propeller-heads I've ever met. Dude B thought that packet switched networks were probably the last genuinely new idea.
Clearly, as a working stiff, I have no idea about these things. The fact that the PTO keeps puking new patents for these ideas must mean that there is some basis for them, no?

Won't work

[Flyboy Connor]

The problem is, of course, that this will not work against patent trolls. Patent trolls have no use for the patents themselves, they are only interested in sueing others. So the OIN might hold off Microsoft, but it won't hold off sleazy extortionists whose only business is patent litigation.

Re:The five companies are :-

[oolon]

Actually this could be very good for the 5 companies involved, it kind of a devils bargin, as anyone who signs up for it can never use patents of their own again, however the founders are not so limited aways giving them an edge on you. I would also wonder if it is acceptable under the GPL, as patents require a non conditional/royalty free grant (for the GPL) to be used. It would have been better for them to say all the patents could be used in GPL programs and if you give up your right to enforce patents also in non GPL ones. This would drive alot more programs to become GPLed, and perhaps otherwise would have been overlooked as it would give them (the program) an added edge/protection.

James