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IBM Opens Their Patent Portfolio to Open Source

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the leading-by-example dept.

kfiller writes "IBM announced that over 500 of their currently held software patents will be freely available to use for those who are working on open source projects (NY Times, free registration required), with the hope that more companies will do the same. More information is available at SourceLicense."

15 of 653 comments (clear)

  1. Sweet! by dolo666 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    IBM Opens Their Patent Portfolio to Open Source That does it. I'm buying a crapload of IBM stock. One good decision after another... but somehow I feel strange in doing so. How many of you remember when IBM were the bad guys?

    1. Re:Sweet! by domenic+v1.0 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      IBM giving away its IP portfolio....HARDLY! Read my previous statement regarding IBM's patents. 500 patents is a tiny fraction of the mountain of patents they own.

      This is a very good idea because IBM wants to stem away from guys like this and IP Hoarding companies. You can't sell what everyone has, so in order to protect its patents...IBM is freely distributing it, in effect trying to hit those IP hoarding companies where it hurts. I see stocks rising and money not being thrown away by IBM, but money thats coming to them for investments in their IP. IBM has been in the game a long time folks, and they have been playing the market right and setting market trends for years. I trust them....hell, I even work for them!

  2. Now *that's* cool. Thanks, IBM! by mrchaotica · · Score: 4, Interesting

    My only question is, is the license revokable?

    --

    "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

  3. sold my soul - read the article by rcpitt · · Score: 3, Interesting
    IBM is either sold on Open Source as "the way of the new millenium" or making hay before the patent paradigm of the old millenium is stabbed in the heart.

    Personally I think they have the idea that software patents are going the way of the dodo and this is the easiest and best way of cashing in on what they have - and they have my vote in the race for smartest global corporation this mellenium.

    --
    Been there, done that, paid for the T-shirt
    and didn't get it
    1. Re:sold my soul - read the article by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      And It will be of great interest to see which patents they let out of the box. Have to wonder if there isn't some underlying spite in it all. Suppose: IBM lets a patent out of the box , but Microsoft and perhaps others currently licenses that very same patent? Implies: whatever Microsoft licenses of IBMs patents they still have to pay for, as long as they keep their source closed. Whereas some new OpenSource startup or other gets it for free, as long as they opne the source. Is this away also to force open the hand of the closed source model?

  4. Re:IBM's strategy by Jameth · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Other Possible Strategy:

    Make it more difficult for those who only make software to compete with open-source, moving the software realm further to being primarily valuable to solutions companies, of which they are the most successful.

  5. Who is Behind this? by femto · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Surely this has been in the pipline for a long time? Who is behind it?

    Is this something IBM has done of its own accord, or is there an organisation out there (eg. OSDL) driving this? Consequently, is IBM the only company to do this, or are they the first cab off the rank with other companies to follow quickly?

    Anyone have some answers?

  6. On top of what everyone else has said. by Chuck+Chunder · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The way the licence is worded (as I understand it anyway) they help protect IBM and other Open Source software. If you use "Open Source software A" with one of IBMs patents in it and decide to leverage your own patents against "Open source software B" then IBM can make life difficult for you by revoking your right to use the patent in software A.

    I guess it's a sort of "mutually assured destruction" which should stop discourage people from firing their lawyers off willy nilly.

    The only thing I can think of is that strictly speaking such a revocable patent licence of any sort might make it unuseable under the current GPL.

    --
    Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
  7. Re:Now *that's* cool. Thanks, IBM! by andreMA · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Sue us and leave yourself liable to being stomped by IBM.
    That's what I get out of it - a Samson Option. Inspired by SCO, I'm sure.
  8. There is one litttle trick in the question... by JollyFinn · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If open source software X uses pledged patent IBM patent Y. And if company Z uses the X, and then company Z becomes something like SCO is today against OSS then IBM can sue them over patent Y since their lisence was revoked because of their lawsuit agais OSS entities. Yes. Thats the trick, they are making this partially for against future SCO:s.
    IANAL, but this looks obvious.

    --
    Emacs is good operating system, but it has one flaw: Its text editor could be better.
  9. BSD? by skyman8081 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It sounds like the patents can ONLY be used by OSS projects, and not by closed-source. Most likely, this means that it will only end up in GPL projects, as a BSD-License can lead to some very shaky grey-area with this aspect of the source licensing.

    --
    Two Roommates and a Boyfriend, updates Monday, Wednesday, and Friday
  10. Re:Are they good patents? by schmobag · · Score: 3, Interesting

    To me, it looked mostly like low-level processor and bus related stuff. Could this be a backdoor way of promoting their PowerPC line, by getting it better supported by open source software?

  11. IBM could block the whole MS patent scare... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    What would be really cool is if IBM reworked its cross licensing agreements it has with big companies like Microsoft to say that they can only use IBM's patents if they extend their cross license to allow open source products to be used.

    MS is still a relative newcomer to patents, but IBM is an old pro. As there are surely hundreds or thousands of patents IBM owns that are used by Windows, Office, etc. and probably only dozens that IBM software would make use of, IBM has the strong hand and could do this.

    Think of how Linux's growth could be helped over the next few years if the overhang of MS lawsuits was removed, and their ability to embrace and extend using patents was curtailed? Maybe I'm dreaming, but its a good dream!

  12. I have a question... (Prior Art) by Vo0k · · Score: 5, Interesting


    Imagine this scenario:
    - party A releases Free Software program implementing some technique.
    - party B patents the technique.
    - party B releases the patent for free use in Free Software.
    - party C challenges the patent claim, indicating A as author of prior art.
    - A would definitely better like B to hold the patent in current state than C to have it challenged (A's program gets protected under the patent rights that way)

    Can C succeed in challenging the patent claim?

    --
    Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
  13. Re:Many ways by geminidomino · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Except it's not. If you RTFSummary, much less TFA, it's being opened up to "Open Source" as defined by the OSI, not "Free Software" as defined by the FSF.

    Which leads to a bit of a sticking point in this plan, unless the announcement is clearer than the NYT article. The BSD License is OSI approved. If I were to use some patented algorithm *shudder* in a BSD Licensed program, could someone take that and wrap it up in a closed source program? Or could they just take the non-patented code? Or would it reduce the BSD license to effectively another GPL by forcing the code to stay open?