Please Indemnify Me From the Patently Obvious

By Kenneth Hess

July 15, 2008 — (Page 1 of 3)

Red Hat Inc., a major opponent of software patents and the largest commercial purveyor of Linux and open-source products, won a significant, but costly, victory for the open-source world in June. It settled another patent infringement lawsuit for us all. The settlement protects Red Hat’s customers with a fully paid, royalty-free, perpetual license for the products mentioned in the suit.

Suit and Settlement Summary:

In 2006, Firestar Software, Inc. sued Red Hat for allegedly infringing on its patent (U.S. Patent No. 6,101,502) for “interfacing an object-oriented software application with a relational database to facilitate access to the relational database.” Red Hat’s Hibernate product, which is part of JBoss, was the offending entity named in the suit. The patent was assigned to another company, DataTern, Inc., that became a third party in the suit. The settlement was between Red Hat, DataTern and Amphion Innovations, PLC. The monetary terms of the settlement were not disclosed. Amphion owns DataTern, Inc. A second related suit brought by DataTern was also dismissed in the settlement.

The open-source community is no stranger to such lawsuits since the big SCO v. IBM suit filed in 2003. The case was eventually dismissed, and IBM dropped its counterclaims against SCO as well. It seems that patent holders, or in some cases, alleged patent holders, seek out high-profile and deep-pocketed offenders upon which to prey. Are they seeking justice or an easy buck?

I’m not saying that all patent holders are gold diggers—in fact, most of them are not. Many companies patent a gadget, invention, process or some other innovation to protect themselves from such lawsuits, not to instigate them. IBM, for example, holds more than 40,000 patents worldwide and has released many to the public domain.

However, IBM surprised everyone when it launched two lawsuits against Amazon.com in October 2006. The suits stated that Amazon violated patents relating to the use of electronic catalogs, online advertising and three other technologies. In IBM’s defense, they sent several letters, over a span of about four years, stating the issues and violations, and offered licensing options before suing the online retailer. Amazon responded by ignoring them all.

Related Search Term(s): Open source, Amazon, IBM, Red Hat

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Please Indemnify Me From the Patently Obvious

By Kenneth Hess

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