A new patent-holding company, the Open Invention Network, was expected to begin operations yesterday with the unusual business plan of buying certain patents and licensing them without charge.
The firm has the financial backing of five technology and consumer electronics companies -- IBM, Novell, Philips, Red Hat and Sony -- that share an interest in promoting the spread of the free Linux operating system.
Chief executive of Open Invention Network Gerald Rosenthal is a lawyer and the former director of IBM's intellectual-property licensing program. Rosenthal led the technology-licensing program at IBM, which has routinely earned US$1 billion or more in recent years. He will be pursuing a different strategy at the new company.
"By itself, this is not a money-making enterprise," he said.
"Our goal is to enable the Linux ecosystem to grow," he said.
As users or distributors of the free operating system, the five corporate supporters of the Open Invention Network all have a vested interest in fending off threats to Linux.
Legal challenges to Linux users have already surfaced, but none have slowed the adoption of Linux, which is used everywhere from corporate data centers to consumer devices like digital music players.
Yet the legal risk, analysts say, is an uncertainty in the outlook for Linux.
Another worry for Linux users is the rise of specialized intellectual property firms that acquire software patents, and then make money by licensing the patents as widely as possible.
Patents owned by the Open Invention Network will be available free to any company, organization or individual that agrees not to assert its patents against others who have signed a license with the new patent-holding company.
An Emirates flight from Dubai arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport yesterday afternoon, the first service of the airline since the US and Israel launched strikes against Iran on Saturday. Flight EK366 took off from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) at 3:51am yesterday and landed at 4:02pm before taxiing to the airport’s D6 gate at Terminal 2 at 4:08pm, data from the airport and FlightAware, a global flight tracking site, showed. Of the 501 passengers on the flight, 275 were Taiwanese, including 96 group tour travelers, the data showed. Tourism Administration Deputy Director-General Huang He-ting (黃荷婷) greeted Taiwanese passengers at the airport and
POSSIBILITIES EMERGE: With Taiwan’s victory and Japan’s narrow win over Australia, Taiwan now have a chance to advance if South Korea also beat the Aussies Taiwan has high hopes that the national baseball team would advance to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) quarter-finals after clinching a crucial 5-4 victory over South Korea in a nail-biting extra-inning game at the Tokyo Dome yesterday. Boosted by three home runs — two solo shots by Yu Chang (張育成) and Cheng Tsung-che (鄭宗哲) and a two-run homer by Stuart Fairchild — the triumph gave Taiwan a much-needed second victory in the five-team Pool C, where only the top two finishers would advance to the knockout stage in Miami, Florida. Entering extra innings with the game tied at four apiece, Taiwan scored
MISSION OF PEACE: The foreign minister urged Beijing to respect Taiwan’s existence as an independent nation, and work together to ensure peace and stability in the region Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) yesterday rejected Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi’s (王毅) comments about Taiwan, criticizing China as a “troublemaker” in the international community and a disruptor of cross-strait peace. Speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of the Chinese National People’s Congress, Wang said that Taiwan has always been a territory of China and that it would be impossible for it to become its own country. The “return” of Taiwan to China was the natural outcome of the Chinese people’s resistance against Japan in World War II, and that any pursuit of independence was “doomed
One person was killed and another seven injured today when a tourist shuttle bus plunged 30m to 40m down a ravine in Nantou County, the Tourism Administration said. The bus is suspected to have suddenly accelerated out of control near the flower center of the Sun-Link-Sea Forest Recreation Area, a popular attraction during cherry blossom season. Of the eight onboard, a 66-year-old man was killed, four were seriously injured and three sustained minor injuries, including the driver. The Nantou County Police Department said it received a report of the incident at 12:15pm and dispatched seven teams to assist. All surviving passengers have been transferred
RSS