an editorial or opinion piece . please help improve this article by rewriting it in an encyclopedic style to make it neutral in tone . see wp no original research and wp notopinion for further details . july 2010 open invention network type limited liability company industry intellectual property founded november 10 2005 headquarters durham nc united states key people keith bergelt services linux protection website www.openinventionnetwork.com with more than 2 000 participants open invention network oin is the largest patent non aggression community in history and supports freedom of action in linux as a key element of open source software . oin acquires patents and licenses them royalty free to its community members which in turn agree not to assert their own patents against linux and linux related systems and applications . 1 contents 1 history 2 ways to participate with open invention network 3 linux defenders 4 see also 5 references 6 external links history edit based in durham nc the company was founded on november 10 2005 by ibm novell philips red hat and sony . nec subsequently became a member . in december 2013 google became a member . in july of 2016 it was announced that toyota became a member . canonical and tomtom are associate members . keith bergelt is the chief executive of the company . bergelt had previously served as president and ceo of paradox capital llc 2 open invention network has more than 1 000 u.s. and international patents and patent applications . it holds the commerce one web services patents previously acquired by novell for 15.5 million which cover several fundamentals of current business to business e commerce practice . oin s founders intend for these patents to encourage others to join and to discourage legal threats against linux and linux related applications . as of january 2016 oin had more than 1 850 community members licensees . 3 the list of key applications considered by oin according to red hat s mark webbink 4 includes apache eclipse evolution fedora directory server firefox gimp gnome kde mono mozilla mysql nautilus openldap openoffice.org open xchange perl postgresql python samba selinux sendmail and thunderbird . on march 26 2007 oracle licensed oin s portfolio thus agreeing not to assert patents against the gnu linux based environment including competitors mysql and postgresql 5 when used as part of a gnu linux system . on august 7 2007 google also joined oin as a licensee . 6 on october 2 2007 barracuda networks joined oin as a licensee . 7 on march 23 2009 tomtom joined oin as a licensee . 8 in may 2011 the european open source software manufacturer univention joined oin as a licensee . 9 in early september 2009 open invention network acquired 30 patents from allied security trust another defensive patent management organization that had been acquired from microsoft through a private auction . if the patents had been acquired by patent trolls they might have caused financial obstacles to linux developers distributors and users . oin was able to avert this issue with the patent acquisition . 10 ways to participate with open invention network edit open invention network has three levels of participation each of which helps to promote open source as a modality for invention and ensure ongoing freedom of action for gnu linux community members members open invention network receives significant financial backing from large companies . oin s members include google ibm nec philips red hat sony suse and toyota . associate members associate members are recruited from linux related companies . associate members make a commitment to the linux community by virtue of their commitments to and membership in oin and help to ensure that patent issues do not impair growth of linux based systems . licensees any company or organization that agrees to refrain from using its patent portfolio against the linux system may become an oin licensee . licensees benefit from royalty free access to a valuable and growing portfolio of strategic patents as well as from ongoing communication with oin concerning linux related patent issues . in so doing licensees facilitate their access to oin resources such as linux defenders which is designed to address patent issues with the potential to impact linux . oin licensees be they founding members associate members or licensees contribute to an ever expanding community of companies that share a common goal of ensuring freedom of action in and across the gnu linux ecosystem . through their unified commitment to linux they limit the negative effect of patent based challenges mounted by companies antagonistic to linux and open source innovation . 11 on june 22 2010 oin announced a new associate member program and the recruitment of canonical previously an oin licensee as its first associate member . 12 the announcement drew criticism from anti software patent activist and a european lobbyist florian m ller 13 14 who had previously criticized 15 the oin for a lack of transparency and for defining arbitrarily the scope of the patent protection it offers . florian mueller s credibility in attacking oin has been called into question due to his paid relationship with microsoft . 16 linux defenders edit oin encourages practices that eliminate low quality patents the foodstuffs of aggressive strategics and patent trolls . 2 specifically oin encourages the linux and open source communities to become active in inter partes review also known as iprs is a procedure for challenging the validity of an issued patent owned by a third party . by challenging patents with iprs the linux and broader open source community can help to eliminate them . unified patents has successfully invalidated a number of patents using inter partes review . 3 third party preissuance submissions provide for challenging the validity of a patent application . they provide a mechanism for third parties to submit prior art of potential relevance to the united states patent and trademark office during the examination of another party s patent application . 4 in this way the linux and broader open source community can help to eliminate patents and particularly help to mitigate the issuance of new low quality patents . a patent application challenger may remain unnamed or anonymous by asking a firm to complete the third party preissuance submission on its behalf . 5 defensive publications codify known inventions that have not previously been patented so that they can be brought to the attention of the patent office to ensure that later developed patent applications claiming such inventions do not issue . defensive publications are a vehicle which allows the linux and broader open source community to create valuable prior art that ensures future freedom of action freedom to operate in the areas covered by them . many defensive publications can be searched for free in ip.com s prior art database . 6 see also edit patent commons project patent pool software patent software patent debate software patents and free software open source software free software allied security trust rpx corporation references edit cover pages web site open invention network collects patents to promote royalty free linux november 11 2005 . open invention network web site management team . consulted on june 26 2008 . http openinventionnetwork.com press release10 16 13.php mark webbink in linux magazine the open invention network april 27th 2006 . stephen shankland 2007 03 26 . oracle bands with open source patent group . news.com . retrieved 2007 03 27 . informationweek google to join group to protect linux from possible patent challenge august 7 2007 matt asay barracuda networks an unsung hero of open source and a new member of open invention network barracudanetworks.com in the news october 2 2007 . prweb open invention network extends the linux ecosystem as tomtom becomes licensee . univention joins the oin patent pool . heise media uk ltd. 2011 05 03 . archived from the original on 11 november 2011 . retrieved 2012 05 30 . http online.wsj.com article sb125236988735891147.html http www.marketwatch.com story open invention network announces associate member program and recruits canonical as its first associate member 2010 06 22 reflink mw news stmp oin open invention network announces associate member program and recruits canonical as its first associate member . theregister ubuntu daddy in patent class of its own daniweb canonical assimilated by the oin borg zdnet mueller calls oin a scam 1 study on the worldwide use of frand committed patents external links edit open invention network gartner research oin will promote linux innovation but raises issues november 16 2005 webbink mark h. the open innovation network . linux magazine april 2006 page 18 . quoted in open invention network oin software patents and floss retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title open invention network & oldid 738107820 categories free software companiescompanies established in 2005patent law organizationshidden categories wikipedia articles needing style editing from july 2010all articles needing style editing navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages danskdeutschfran aisitaliano polski edit links this page was last modified on 6 september 2016 at 23 23 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; additional terms may apply . by using this site you agree to the terms of use and privacy policy . wikipedia is a registered trademark of the wikimedia foundation inc. a non profit organization . privacy policy about wikipedia disclaimers contact wikipedia developers cookie statement mobile view