In the midst of the patent battle warfare, Microsoft is stepping out with a new functionality to increase transparency among patents: Patent Tracker Tool which enables anyone interested in checking out Microsoft or its subsidiaries' patents to download them in a CSV format.
The tool will allow patents to be searched for by patent number, country, title, and whether the patent is is held by a subsidiary or of Microsoft's itself.
To put the number 10 in perspective, Google handed out 9 of its patents to HTC, one company, which were used to sue Apple by HTC immediately. If Google can give 9 patents out to HTC for a particular rival, I would think it could dish out a lot more than 10 to open source.
It's not like a win-win solution is not possible. Microsoft promised to not sue individual open source developers over any of its patents, not just 10...through the Microsoft Community Promise. Furthermore, Google not only likes to hold the right to sue any open source developers they also are very stingy on making a complete public list of there acquired and total patents apparent. They are clearly losing the Transparency battle (along with the Motorola patent battles against Microsoft). Google's indexed patent search tool, while is a step towards the right direction in transparency, it still falls short of Microsoft's downloadable CSV file of all their patents.
If Google wanted to, I'm sure it wouldn't be at all difficult completing a simple task of making a list of their patents available to the public in between inventing 3D glasses or an automated car--but they are choosing not to, which only makes one think, why not? What do they have in store, what are they cooking up in their super secret lab? Regardless, it needs to make quick strides to catch up to Microsoft in transparency, or deal with the wrath of the public and patent community. Ten pledges doesn't even come to make a dent in the open source community, so Google and other companies should be focusing on the bigger picture of their overall patent portfolios rather than getting revved up over a tiny number of patents.
In an era of such great and massive innovation, where nearly 30,000 non-provisional patent filings happen per month according to Patentlyo.com, transparency is key towards enhancing and inducing that competitiveness and fueling growth and job creation.
The tool will allow patents to be searched for by patent number, country, title, and whether the patent is is held by a subsidiary or of Microsoft's itself.
Microsoft's Executive VP of Legal & Corporate Affairs Brad Smith said. "Transparency around patent ownership will help prevent gamesmanship by companies that seek to lie in wait and "hold up" companies...transparency is a prerequisite to enforceability of patent licensing pledges, whether to standards, bodies or to the world at large. Quite simply, without transparency it is impossible to determine if a company is in fact abiding by those commitments."Google, troubled with Microsoft's PR, followed headlines with news of their own: by promising not to assert 10 of their patents against open source software, joining the ranks of IBM, Sun Microsystems, Computer Associates who also promised to not assert select patents in 2005. The caveat, however, is not only the dismal amount of patents from their entire patent portfolio Google chose to pledge, but the value of the patents. The pledged patents are not beneficiary and those not helpful in any way to the open source community. According to Foss Patents, while IMB only pledged 1% of its portfolio, Google, with 10 patents, has pledged a small fraction of its portfolio (of the 17k it owns).
To put the number 10 in perspective, Google handed out 9 of its patents to HTC, one company, which were used to sue Apple by HTC immediately. If Google can give 9 patents out to HTC for a particular rival, I would think it could dish out a lot more than 10 to open source.
It's not like a win-win solution is not possible. Microsoft promised to not sue individual open source developers over any of its patents, not just 10...through the Microsoft Community Promise. Furthermore, Google not only likes to hold the right to sue any open source developers they also are very stingy on making a complete public list of there acquired and total patents apparent. They are clearly losing the Transparency battle (along with the Motorola patent battles against Microsoft). Google's indexed patent search tool, while is a step towards the right direction in transparency, it still falls short of Microsoft's downloadable CSV file of all their patents.
If Google wanted to, I'm sure it wouldn't be at all difficult completing a simple task of making a list of their patents available to the public in between inventing 3D glasses or an automated car--but they are choosing not to, which only makes one think, why not? What do they have in store, what are they cooking up in their super secret lab? Regardless, it needs to make quick strides to catch up to Microsoft in transparency, or deal with the wrath of the public and patent community. Ten pledges doesn't even come to make a dent in the open source community, so Google and other companies should be focusing on the bigger picture of their overall patent portfolios rather than getting revved up over a tiny number of patents.
In an era of such great and massive innovation, where nearly 30,000 non-provisional patent filings happen per month according to Patentlyo.com, transparency is key towards enhancing and inducing that competitiveness and fueling growth and job creation.
It does seem that Google should be more transparent in the patents that it holds. It would be good obviously for people who might accidentally infringe on Google, but it would also be good for Google I believe. This is because it would save Google litigation costs from accidental infringements, and even in the court, Google can point to their database and prove that they've been open about which patents they have.
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