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November 15, 2005
Open Source Fig Leaf
In
a gesture to generate warm and fuzzy feelings that Linux has a pretense of
intellectual property protection, the "global consortium"
Open Source Development Labs has opened its
Patent Commons. The Patent Commons
is a set of searchable databases listing the "more than 500 patents pledged to
date".
500 of the "more than 500 patents" have been pledged by IBM to the Patent Commons. For example, one high-value IBM-donated patent is 6,209,575, for a "Tamper-proof set screw", which prevents "unauthorized access to a rotating shaft." IBM has over 44,000 patents.
Although failing to rally many patents, "the OSDL Patent Commons Project has already rallied the support of many industry leaders, including CA, IBM, Intel Novell, Red Hat, and Sun Microsystems."
Here's the OSDL press release.
Posted by Patent Hawk at November 15, 2005 11:03 AM | Patents In Business