United States : Open Source Group Buys Microsoft Patents to Ward Off Patent Trolls.Byline: Mamta03 Chip TaylorOpen Invention Network is reportedly buying up a number of Linux-related patents that Microsoft sold the rights to earlier this year. The move allows OIN to retain legal rights to the patents and license them freely to the open source community, thereby ensuring that less-scrupulous buyers don't acquire them and initiate frivolous Of minimal importance; legally worthless. A frivolous suit is one without any legal merit. In some cases, such an action might be brought in bad faith for the purpose of harrassing the defendant. patent-infringement cases. The open source community operates from a different point of view as it relates to intellectual property ownership and in generally abhors the concept of patents. However, patent and intellectual property rights exist and the open source community has been forced to both defend itself from patent infringement patent infringement n. the manufacture and/or use of an invention or improvement for which someone else owns a patent issued by the government, without obtaining permission of the owner of the patent by contract, license or waiver. suits and pursue those who misappropriate mis·ap·pro·pri·ate tr.v. mis·ap·pro·pri·at·ed, mis·ap·pro·pri·at·ing, mis·ap·pro·pri·ates 1. a. To appropriate wrongly: misappropriating the theories of social science. open source code. The open source community, by its very nature, is a grassroots, volunteer experiment in collaboration. The premise of open source software is for the community to work together to develop software products which are freely distributed and used. OIN helps the open source community- particularly the Linux community- to straddle In the stock and commodity markets, a strategy in options contracts consisting of an equal number of put options and call options on the same underlying share, index, or commodity future. the fence between the collaborative sharing of open source code and the legal world of intellectual property and patent rights. According to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. its web site, OIN "was formed to promote Linux by using patents to create a collaborative environment." The site also states "Patents owned by Open Invention Network The Open Invention Network (OIN) is a company that acquires patents and licenses them royalty free to entities which, in turn, agree not to assert their own patents against Linux or Linux-related applications. are available royalty-free to any company, institution or individual that agrees not to assert its patents against the Linux System." That brings us to the tension between OIN and Microsoft. OIN members include industry giants such as IBM (International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY, www.ibm.com) The world's largest computer company. IBM's product lines include the S/390 mainframes (zSeries), AS/400 midrange business systems (iSeries), RS/6000 workstations and servers (pSeries), Intel-based servers (xSeries) , Redhat, and Sony, but Microsoft is notoriously absent. By not officially joining OIN, Microsoft is sending a tacit message that it still retains the right to assert its patents against Linux developers and OIN members. You might think facing a steady stream of accusations of patent infringement such as the i4i patent infringement case against Microsoft Word A full-featured word processing program for Windows and the Macintosh from Microsoft. Included in the Microsoft application suite, it is a sophisticated program with rudimentary desktop publishing capabilities that has become the most widely used word processing application on the market. and other legal challenges would make Microsoft less trigger-happy about initiating its own patent suits. However, Microsoft has never been shy about asserting its intellectual property rights. In 2004 Microsoft pursued Lindows for being too close to the Windows trademark. Copyright : Euclid Infotech Pvt. Ltd. Provided by Syndigate.info an Albawaba.com company |
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