IBM to open up patent filings
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(InfoWorld) - IBM will publish its patent applications online to share their details with the world and, perhaps, reduce the flood of patent infringement lawsuits. IBM made the change in corporate policy public Tuesday after a two-month long research project this summer involving experts in law, academia, government and technology. The change in policy "is designed to foster integrity, a healthier environment for innovation, and mutual respect for intellectual property rights," IBM said in a statement. It encouraged others in "the patent community" to follow its example. IBM believes that if it is clear and up-front about what technology it is patenting, such disclosure should reduce the risk of patent disputes and lower the chance that its innovations will infringe the patents of others. In this era of technology innovations, the number of patent filings have swelled and government agencies, such as the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, have trouble keeping up with applications. "Those systems now deal with growing numbers of questionable patent applications and patent lawsuits," IBM stated. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office makes filings public 18 months after they are submitted and offers only a two-month window for limited public comment on the patents, said IBM spokesman Ari Fishkind, at the technology company's headquarters in Armonk, New York. Under IBM's new policy, the company will establish a six-month window for public comments and encourage more active dialogue about the patents. This will put others on notice of what IBM is planning to patent, but also give other inventors the opportunity to tell IBM that they already hold a patent on what IBM proposes to patent, Fishkind said. "This is a way to get more people involved, like in an open source community," he said. The policy is intended to make IBM patent applicants responsible for the quality and clarity of their applications and to clearly establish ownership of the patent. IBM also contends that business methods that don't have particular technical merit should not be patentable. The patent policy was developed by a panel of about 50 experts working throughout May and June in a collaborative process conducted on an online wiki. A wiki is a Web site at which several people have the ability to write and edit a document online. "The intellectual property regime in this country is not functioning in the best interests of society and of innovators," said Steven Weber, a professor of international studies and political science at the University of California at Berkeley and a member of the group that developed the policy. The volume of patent litigation has grown with the growth of new technology innovations and the tendency of courts to expand the definition of what can be patented, Weber said. There have also been instances in which companies have used vague patent language as leverage to sue others for patent infringement and reap millions in settlements. If the patent process is more open, the risk of litigation will be lower, which saves all parties money spent on litigating patent disputes. "Litigation is a dead weight loss" on everybody, Weber said.
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A group of technology companies is offering to share some of its patents to encourage the development of environmentally friendly technologies.IBM, Nokia, Sony, and bulk-mailing equipment manufacturer Pitney-Bowes have together donated patents to the Eco-patent Commons, an organization set up to share the patents for technology with environmental benefits.Any organization willing to donate a patent for environmentally friendly technology to the commons can join the group. The patents are made available for use by members and nonmembers alike.So far, patents pledged to the commons cover fields such as waste water treatment, air purification, cell-phone recycling and reducing printer ink consumption. IBM has pledged 27 patents, Pitney Bowes two, and Nokia and Sony one each.The Eco-patent Commons will be administered by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, a group which brings together CEOs in industries such as cement, electrical utilities, timber, mining and transport.The group wants businesses to donate patents for technologies that have a positive environmental impact, but that are not related to their core business.It hopes that access to patents in the Commons will enable businesses facing environmental challenges that have already been solved by others to develop cleaner, less energy-intensive products as a result.The move is inspired by the success of the free and open-source software sector, where the sharing information has resulted in the creation of many new products, the group said.Together, the companies apply for thousands of patents each year. IBM in particular regularly tops the league tables for&#160;most filings with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
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IBM will put a collection of its On Demand-related products and technologies to this test next week at the U.S. Open tennis championships, implementing a grid-based infrastructure capable of running multiple workloads including two not associated with the tournament.
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IBM plans to announce today that it is getting into a fast-growing segment of the data storage industry that&#39;s currently dominated by Hewlett-Packard.
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IBM is opening up its software developer programme in order to get more bodies behind its battle with Microsoft. Big Blue wants to increase the number of independent software vendors it works with.
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IBM Corp. says it has dreamed up a new method for profiting from its vast storehouse of patents. And by the way, the company wants to patent the idea.
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It may be too early to talk plug-and-play but IBM Corp. believes it can help businesses of all sizes easily cluster their servers to handle intensive computing workloads.
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IBM (NYSE: IBM) is taking the wraps off of its proprietary software technology, releasing 500 patents to open source developers and challenging its I.T. competitors to follow suit.
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IBM on Monday will announce the creation of an Eco-Patents Commons --shared innovations geared at environmental sustainability.
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IBM (NYSE: IBM) has announced an initiative to make Linux applications available across the company's entire hardware line.
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A patent application turned up by the Associated Press reveals that IBM has proposed an electronic trading system that would enable a new kind of derivatives market for intellectual property. In this market, traders would buy and sell "floating" rights to chunks of a company's IP portfolio, thus becoming not only the recipient of royalties from that portfolio, but the designated defender of those IP rights in court, for a limited period of time.
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InfoWorld - IBM is making it easier to utilize its patented intellectual property to implement nearly 200 standards in SOA, Web services, security,y and other spaces.
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Plans to provide umbrella from patent-infringement suits to outsiders using or developing the OS--a move to counter Linux.
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IBM is introducing a line of radio-frequency identification services for midmarket companies that are based on practices that have been honed by IBM itself at its facilities for more than a year.
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IBM on Friday is scheduled to make available early versions of three grid-based technologies intended to help corporate and third-party developers better manage grid-based resources as a way to solve large and compute-intensive problems.
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Information technology (IT) giant IBM is ready to grab more shares in the IT related market of China&#39;s small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with more products at affordable prices.
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Companies provide details of plan to invest $300 million to challenge IBM's dominance in the market.