[Ecommerce] IBM To Open 100 Patents To Public

[Manon Ress]

IBM To Open 100 Patents To Public

Reuters   - eWEEK Tue Sep 26, 3:35 PM ET
BOSTON, Sept 26 (Reuters) - IBM said on Tuesday that it plans to let
the general public use intellectual property from a portion of its
patents in a bid to stimulate innovation.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/zd/20060926/tc_zd/189670

The move applies to more than 100 of IBM's global portfolio of 40,000
patents. The company has yet to release the list of patents that will
be included, but hundreds of others are already in the public domain.

The program allows others to develop and sell products that draw upon
the patents without paying licensing fees to IBM.

The new patents apply to technical aspects of business processes and
cover inventory controls and electronic commerce.

They have been sitting unused in International Business Machines
Corp.'s intellectual-property vault, the company said.

Licensing fees from other patents in IBM's massive portfolio
generates about $1 billion in annual revenue for the company.

The Armonk, New York computing giant announced the move as it
unveiled a global patent policy that it said was designed to promote
innovation and reduce the incidence of disputes over intellectual
property.

That policy also includes a plan to make a small percentage of its
patent applications available for public review on the Web site of
the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office before the government agency
rules on them.

The U.S. government Web site will seek public comments on the merit
of patent candidates, which patent office officials will review when
they examine the applications.

The U.S. government granted IBM 2,941 patents in 2005, bringing its
total in the United States to about 28,000.


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Manon Anne Ress
manon.ress@cptech.org,
www.cptech.org

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