IBM shares patents with open source developers
Robert Kaye URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/11/technology/11soft.html?oref=login&oref=re... Today IBM announced that they will allow open source developers to share 500 of their patents to establish a patent commons: I.B.M. will continue to hold the 500 patents. But it has pledged to seek no royalties from and to place no restrictions on companies, groups or individuals who use them in open-source projects, as defined by the Open Source Initiative, a nonprofit education and advocacy group. The group's definition involves a series of policies allowing for free redistribution, publication of the underlying source code and no restrictions on who uses the software or how it is used. This is the most serious (and cool!) development in Open Source in quite some time. Software patents are one of the few genuine threats to the open source model, and IBM taking a step to ensure that the OSS model isn't hindered. While I am far from an expert on patents and IANAL, I see two distinct facets to this issue. First, this means that open source developers can sleep better at night with respect to these 500 patents. IBM is not going to sue you tomorrow because you've inadvertendly stepped on one of their patents. Phew The second facet is the concept of a patent pool. I don't know how this will shape up with respect to the patent commons that IBM is creating, but consider company A which has a pool of patents that it has licensed to company B. If company C comes along and claims that company B infringes on one of company C's patents it could go and file a lawsuit against company B. However, since company B has company A's patent pool at its disposal, it can root around in the pool and see if there are any patents that company C might be infringing. Company B's defense could then respond to company C by saying: "Ok, we may be infringing your patent, but we strongly believe that you infringe these 20 patents that we have access to. Drop your suit or will counter sue." Company C is all of the sudden faced with a tidal wave of infringements that hadn't been an issue up until they started picking on company B. As you can see, this is a great defense strategy for Company B, and surely lucrative for company A. My question is whether or not IBM will allow the patent commons to be used like a patent pool. What if some anti-OSS company were to attack an OSS developer on the grounds that said developer infringed on their patent? Could this developer see if the attacking company infringes on one of the patents from the patent commons and if so, use the patent pool to form a defense strategy? If this is the case, then the power of this patent pool is vastly greater than it appears at first glance. Regardless, I applaud IBM in this move and I am curious to see what will come of this in the future. However, we need to keep in mind that IBM is a large corporation, and while they have drastically changed course from their actions in the 80s, they are still self interested and have to look out for shareholder value. This patent pool is not an altruistic act -- IBM has some strategy in mind with this move. Perhaps its as simple as fostering open source and ensuring that the model doesn't evaporate due to patents. But life is never that simple, is it? Robert Kaye is the Mayhem & Chaos Coordinator and creator of MusicBrainz, the music metadata commons.
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