Posts Tagged: "LOT Network"

LOT Network markets itself as a non-profit consortium, which offers its members a legal mechanism affording them protection from patent assertion entities (PAEs) and immunizes its members against patent suits from non-operating entities for about 1.2 million worldwide patent assets currently owned by LOT members… The LOT Network conditional license only applies to patents that are in network at the time that a firm joins the consortium. If a business joins LOT after a LOT member sells a patent, previous LOT members are protected by the conditional license whereas the new member still faces the potential of an infringement suit down the road on that patent.

The key idea is to think strategically about the software, the value it can provide to the company, and whether the technology should be developed in-house. In some cases, software can provide more value to the company when it includes open source components. Here at Dropbox, for example, we use open source software in our products and we use it to help with development… Even here there are a few ground rules: We evaluate the code on the way in so we know what has been incorporated in our software later. And we prohibit code that is licensed under more restrictive terms that could require us to open source our product in turn.

The patent troll problem has always been a creation of large operating companies. They obtained dubious, highly questionable patents. These low quality patents were then sold to other entities so they could specifically and intentionally be used to sue other large operating companies… Post grant challenges were created in the AIA for the express purpose of getting rid of these low quality patents. The large operating companies that so desperately lobbied for new procedures to challenge these low quality patents instead continue to pay extortion-like settlements to patent trolls who apparently continue to sue alleging infringement of low quality patents.

IP departments are often forced to spend their limited budget defending patent troll lawsuits targeted at the base computing and service layers instead of where it should be spent – protecting application layer innovation. There has been no shortage of such litigation due to the glut of vague and ambiguous software patents directed to basic computing technologies. These broad, vague patents have become glaring targets for trolls, who are eagerly buying them up and asserting them wherever they can. As a result, companies are being sued for patent infringement for things that aren’t directly related to their end products and services.

In 1903, Henry Ford was hit with a patent lawsuit while watching his first automobiles get loaded into boxcars. IP issues have plagued the auto industry every since. Today, over 110 years later, automakers still deal with IP threats on a regular basis. The number of lawsuits filed against automakers by patent trolls rose from 17 in 2009 to 107 in 2014. These lawsuits often result in six and seven-figure settlements, and represent a serious drain on the automotive industry. With this spectre hanging over their heads, automakers can’t fully innovate, grow and prosper. It is time for the industry to band together and fight back.

Open licenses are private arrangements that work within the current legal regime to encourage innovation, discourage trolls, and help attract top engineering talent. It is a win-win solution for different patenting companies and user’s society. There are several different types of most common open licenses. A License of Transfer Agreement (or shortly, a LOT agreement), that helps to prevent legal suits from non-practicing entities that purchase patents for the sole purpose of enforcing them (called Patent Assertion Entities, or PAEs). Under the LOT Agreement, every company that participates, grants a license to the other participants where the license becomes effective only when patents are transferred to non-participants.

Google is giving away patents to small-ish tech firms who apply and agree to join the License or Transfer (LOT) Network. Google retains a license to the patents, which can only be asserted defensively and asks the participant stay in the LOT Network for 2 years or the patents revert back to Google. Also, Google gives the participant access to browse Google’s “inorganic patent portfolio” (i.e., acquired from third parties) with an eye towards selling and licensing more patents to the participant.