The Open Invention Network
The Open Invention Network (OIN) is not just another patent consortia looking to make money or to cover a specified field of technology. OIN is a dynamic part of that growing concept — an open source patent commons.
Thursday, April 27th, 2006
My November 2005 “On The Docket” column (available online at
http://www.linux-mag.com/2005-01/docket.html) discussed a patent commons for
Linux and open source. In that very same month, the
Open Invention Network was announced. I wasn’t prescient, nor was it happenstance that the wo events occurred simultaneously, as Red Hat was a founding member of OIN, along with IBM, Novell, Sony and Philips.
Yet even after a few months, the concept behind OIN still seems to be poorly understood. For example, just recently, David Kaefer of Microsoft stated, “However, some patent holding companies or consortia are proving efficient ways of amassing the set of rights vendors need to pursue development in an area. An interesting recent development is the launch of the Open Invention Network, whereby some from the open-source community have said ‘we might not like patents, but we are going to respect their existence and develop a model to buy the rights we need efficiently.’ It is a type of patent-holding company.” (See
http://mobile.vnunet.com/itweek/analysis/2149111/patents-drive-progress?page= 2.) Well, David, yes, OIN is a patent holding company, and no, it isn’t acquiring patents needed by the open source community.
Skinning the OIN
OIN was founded for two distinct purposes:
*To provide a network, or commons, around Linux and Linux-related applications; and
*To assure that the resulting large, patent-free “safe area” remains large, safe, and patent-free.
