Microsoft: We'll Help Customers Create Patents But We Get a License To Use Them (zdnet.com)

Microsoft outlined a new intellectual-property policy on Thursday for co-developed technology that embraces open source and seeks to assure customers it won't run off with their innovations. From a report: The shared innovation principles build on its Azure IP Advantage program for helping customers combat patent trolls. The new principles for co-developed innovation cover ownership of existing technology, customer ownership of new patents, support for open source, licensing new IP back to Microsoft, software portability, transparency, and learning. Microsoft president Brad Smith says the principles aim to assuage customers' fears that Microsoft may end up using co-developed technology to rival them.

[...] In return, Microsoft gets to license back any of the patents in the new technology but promises to limit their use to improving its own platform technologies, such as Azure, Azure AI services, Office 365, Windows, Xbox, and HoloLens. It also reserves the right to use "code and tools developed by or on behalf of Microsoft that are intended to provide technical assistance to customers in their respective businesses."

Comments

The irony is thick

[Anonymous Coward]

A patent troll saying they'll help you with patents? This is rich, even for Microsoft.

Re:The irony is thick

[PolygamousRanchKid]

A patent troll saying they'll help you with patents? This is rich, even for Microsoft.

*Shrug* . . . it's basically the same deal if you work for a large enough company that has a patent department.

It's your idea . . . your name is on the patent . . . but then it says, "Assigned To: [your employer]" in the title information.

In my case, I received some cash awards for the patents . . . but who knows what they are really worth to my employer.

Re:The irony is thick

[Shompol]

Gee, I don't know where to start... Microsoft gets a few bucks off every Android set ever sold. Microsoft.... Android? Because Microsoft threatens manufacturers to throw an undisclosed number of patents if they don't pay up. Undisclosed, not because there are some specific ones infringed, but because MS can keep throwing until payout does not look so bad.

And this is only one obvious troll. They usually troll under shell companies so cannot be linked to MS directly. This being probably most famous one. I know of a few others, and probably many more that we don't know about because we only know of the ones that leaked by accident.

For a fee...

[jd]

...Microsoft will troll you with your own patents. It's a superb get-rich-quick scheme.

Re:License back?

[jellomizer]

What I find more to the point, what is the long term support of this? Say I make an innovative piece of software, however it was outside Microsoft scope, 19 years later will they still help me protect my patent?

Or say I want to license it to an other company say Apple? In that mess of legalese will I have the right to do so? And what is to say the Current Nice Guy image of Microsoft regresses back to Bully Microsoft that we seen with Gates and Balmer.

Dumb Dumb Remember Spyglass, everyone?

[ckaminski]

To anyone choosing to suck on this carrot, may I remind everyone what happened with Internet Explorer and Sypglass?

While I'm skeptical about the service..

[Junta]

If I were a technology company, I wouldn't want to go anywhere near other people's future without something like a license to use the patents.

I would be in great fear that someone in my company would do something that resembles a private draft of a patent one of those users is working on. This happens all the time by coincidence, but having access to customer research/draft prior to patent application just raises a lot more suspicion if you happen to do the same or similar thing as that research goes to.

If you want a service to help you with patents and you want to keep control of it, you go to a legal company, not a technology company that is likely to have a conflict of interest.