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Microsoft sells patents to OIN, 2009

In 2009, Microsoft put a set of 22 patents up for sale. These were bought by Open Invention Network, through the intermediary of Allied Security Trust. The sale was announced in September 2009.

The patents in question were ones acquired "several years ago" by Microsoft from Silicon Graphics Inc (SGI).[1] These may thus be the OpenGL patents which SGI sold to Microsoft in 2002.[2]

According to Red Hat, Microsoft's sale "also used marketing materials that highlighted offensive uses of the patents against open source software, including a number of the most popular open source packages."[3]

External links

  • "the mechanisms the Linux industry has constructed to defend Linux are working" (a little exaggerated, and maybe not the best message to give during the month when a real solution could be worked on by submitting an anti-swpat brief for the US Supreme Court's review of Bilski)

References

  1. ↑ http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10346838-56.html
  2. ↑ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/01/16/sgi_transfers_3d_graphics_patents/
  3. ↑ http://press.redhat.com/2009/09/09/microsoft-and-patent-trolls/

How to help improve this article

The following are requests for information that the wiki doesn't currently have. Help sought! For a list pages that have a section like this, see the Category:Pages with todo.
  • Is the price paid known?
  • Can we confirm that they were the OpenGL patents?
    • Was it all of the OpenGL patents?
  • Did the sale actually take place in September 2009? I thought I read somewhere happened in June.


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