OIN-A patent pool to protect Linux users from lawsuits

[ Thanks to An Anonymous Reader for this link. ]

"Open Invention Network was formed in 2005 with several commercial software giants like IBM, Novell, Phillips, Red Hat, NEC, Sony becoming founding members and investing substantially in the growth of the organization. The latest to seek support from the fraternity partners is Google, on the lines of Ubuntu Open source software promoter Canonical. Yahoo became an entrant, late last year.

"In the first few months of this year, the membership has increased with corporate licences numbering 334 and OpenStack to walking into the industry endorsed organization. Older members include the likes of Facebook, HP, Fujitisu, RackSpace, Juniper.

"With close to 300 patents, growing list of more than 2,000 agreements with licensees and members for member-users to use all Linux based software without fear of being penalized for infringement(however unintentional)."

Complete Story

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