[Patents] EPO-Patent on GUI-based network configuration

[Mark Shewmaker mark@primefactor.com]

On Fri, Nov 10, 2000 at 12:07:30AM -0500, Gregory Aharonian wrote:
>       That said, I can't believe the we-now-love-open-source-IBM
> actually now loves open source, given the continual acquisition of
> such silly patents.  IBM gets these patents, not for defensive reasons
> like their guy said at the French conference, but for offensive reasons
> to maintain their billion-dollar/year+ patent licensing royalties.
> Their support for Open Source is mostly to help them undermine
> Microsoft in the marketplace.
>
> Greg Aharonian

According to the following article, IBM gained more of an advantage
from cross-licensing compared to direct royalties ten years ago.  I
assume the relative benefits of cross-licensing versus direct
royalties is the same or greater today.  (I don't see how the
economics would have changed in the last 10 years such that the
opposite would be the case.)

>From an article in "Think" magazine, #5, 1990:

    |"You get value from patents in two ways," says Roger Smith, IBM
    |Assistant General Counsel, intellectual property law.  "Through fees,
    |and through licensing negotiations that give IBM access to other
    |patents."
    |
    |"The IBM patent portfolio gains us the freedom to do what we need to
    |do through cross-licensing---it gives us access to the inventions of
    |others that are the key to rapid innovation.  Access is far more
    |valuable to IBM than the fees it receives from its 9,000 active
    |patents.  There's no direct calculation of this value, but it's many
    |times larger than the fee income, perhaps an order of magnitude
    |larger."

In any event, I see IBM's acquisition of these patents as being
compatible with liking open source, as any patent infringement claims
brought up by a third-party in relation to IBM-distributed Open Source
products can be met by pointing out IBM-held patents in the same way
patent infringement claims in relation to non Open Source products
could be met.

(I copied the above quote from
http://mail.gnu.org/pipermail/info-gplusplus/1991-July.txt ;.
It may also be found in part at
http://lpf.ai.mit.edu/Patents/industry-at-risk.html ;.)

 -Mark Shewmaker
  mark@primefactor.com