Troll - Credit: pagedooley on Flickr (CC BY)
CNNMoney.com reports that a consortium of companies called the Open Invention Network has launched a Web site that publicities software developments so that patent trolls will have a harder time launching frivolous lawsuits.
The most novel feature of the new program, to be known as Linux Defenders, will be its call to independent open-source software developers all over the world to start submitting their new software inventions to Linux Defenders (Web site due to be operational Tuesday) so that the group’s attorneys and engineers can, for no charge, help shape, structure, and document the invention in the form of a “defensive publication.”
Linux Defenders will then also see to it that the publication, duly attributing authorship of the invention to the developer who submitted it, is filed on the IP.com Web site, a database used by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and other patent examiners throughout the world when they are trying to determine whether a proposed patent is truly novel, as any patentable invention is supposed to be.
In effect, the defensive-publications initiative mounts a preemptive attack upon those who would try to patent purported software inventions that are not truly novel — i.e., innovations that are already known and in use, though no one may have ever previously bothered to document them, let alone obtain a patent on them, a process usually requiring the hiring of attorneys as well as payment of significant filing fees.
Among the usual suspects (IBM, Red Hat, etc.), OIM also includes Phillips and Sony. I guess the concern of patent trolling gives these companies a common enemy. The Linux Foundation and the Software Freedom Law Center are co-sponsoring this as well.
December 10th, 2008 at 18:20
[...] Web site launched to safeguard against patent trolls I guess the concern of patent trolling gives these companies a common enemy. The Linux Foundation [...]