

IBM: Broken Promises and Patent Enforcement - CoryOndrejka
http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2010/04/ibm-breaks-oss-patent-promise-targets-mainframe-emulator.ars

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Tamerlin
This isn't exactly new behavior for IBM. It's more like tradition there. IBM
has an astonishing patent portfolio, routinely topping the list of annual
patent counts, and yet does next to nothing with the vast majority of them...
until someone else makes money with something that IBM has a patent on. And
then the blue-suited lawyers arrive and shake the infringer down for money.
Even Sun's been on the receiving end of that.

Anyone familiar with IBM's history would, I think, not be at all surprised by
this.

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hga
Whatever you think of IBM's ends, the use of these means:

" _Mueller points out that two of the patents that IBM listed in its
[threatening] letter to Hercules are included in the list of 500 patents that
IBM promised to not assert against open source software in 2005."_

Can't be seen as good.

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alexandros
That was my initial understanding too, but I am not sure if TurboHercules, the
for-profit company, is shielded as is openHercules, the open-source project.
This loophole may allow them to sue and keep their promise at the same time.
Again, I am not quite clear if this is the case.

~~~
hga
Interesting ... but how could IBM's promise mean anything if TurboHercules,
which is an open-source company, isn't protected against assertion of all 500
of those patents.

The loophole is a contractual issue between IBM, its customers, and perhaps
TurboHercules (in that the latter is encouraging the customers to violate the
contract).

I don't see it having anything to do with open-source patent assertions and
again I can't see how IBM's promise would be worth anything if the latter had
its own loophole of a "If we sue you for other reason the 500 patents become
fair game."

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ssp
Would it be possible to make a license - "PGPL" - that included something to
the effect of "If you assert any patent against any PGPL-licensed project, you
lose all rights to all PGPL-licensed projects forever"?

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ssp
See also these Fake Steve pieces:

[http://www.fakesteve.net/2009/10/why-ibm-is-in-trouble-
with-...](http://www.fakesteve.net/2009/10/why-ibm-is-in-trouble-with-
antitrust.html)

[http://www.fakesteve.net/2009/10/case-against-ibm-
continued....](http://www.fakesteve.net/2009/10/case-against-ibm-
continued.html)

~~~
hga
I haven't watched IBM since the '80s, but their MO as described in the first
article was essentially that back then.

As for the second one, it gives me greater hope that ITA Software will survive
Air Canada's suspension of ITA's new product/project/service.

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YuriNiyazov
The letter lists 106 patents + 67 applied that Hercules is accused of using,
but only two of those were listed in the "we won't sue you for this" category?
I am inclined to give IBM some benefit of the doubt here.

