The associated patents were previously available under royalty-free licensing terms, but IBM’s covenant not to sue simplifies the process by offering access to anyone, so long as they do not bring patent infringement claims related to the specification.
According to the terms of IBM’s pledge, that clause relates to claims made against not only IBM, but anyone implementing the specification, meaning that the patent pledge also has a defensive element in protecting third party developers from patent claims.
While developers using the SOAP 1.1 specification, for example, could sue another for patent infringement, they are now on a warning that doing so could result in patent infringement claims brought by IBM and its army of lawyers.
The patent pledge also extends not only to distributors, developers, and manufacturers, but also to users and customers, so while a developer cited in the example above might have IBM to answer to, its customers continue to benefit from the pledge.
The company has effectively turned the stockpiling of intellectual property on its head, making it clear that offering patent protection for everyone is as good a defense against patent claims as keeping details of potential patent claims secret.
IBM said it hopes the move will increase the development of interoperability between disparate systems. IBM is sending a message that innovation and industry growth happens in an open, collaborative atmosphere, said Bob Sutor, IBM’s vice president of open source and standards.
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In the current environment, it is hard not to see IBM’s move as a swipe at Microsoft, which has been busy lining up patent agreements with select Linux partners based around its claims that open source software infringes 235 of its patents.
The company has resisted calls to detail which patents it is referring to, preferring to discuss the details in private with the likes of Novell, Linspire and Xandros, as well as Samsung, Fuji Xerox, and LG Electronics.
While that is the way patent deals are usually done, IBM’s strategy indicates that it need not be the only way. The company had previously promised open source developers access to 500 of its patents in January 2005, but that in itself was selective on whether the protects used an Open Source Initiative-approved license.
By offering access to everyone and anyone so long as they do not bring patent infringement claims against anyone else, IBM has shown that it is possible to respect intellectual property rights while sharing intellectual property openly.
