OIN’s primary offering is our FREE Community Membership. OIN also offers 4 additional products & services related to Open Source and patent non-aggression.
OIN Patent Non-Aggression Community Membership
There are many benefits for members of our community. You can find a summary of the key benefits here.
Sharing Prior Art
OIN leverages our network of relationships in the greater Open Source community to collect and share prior art in order to permit OIN licensees at risk, or in litigation, to better defend against Linux-centric patent aggression.
OIN Patent Acquisitions & Threat Clearing
In certain circumstances, OIN may acquire patents from patent antagonists asserting patents in situations where the acquisition provides a broad-based clearing of patent threats to OIN community members.
OIN Reduces Patent Application Claim Scope
OIN routinely utilizes the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA) (defined below) pre-issuance submission program to submit prior art to limit the claim scope — or secure outright rejection — of overly broad patent claims in patent applications that are focused on key technology areas relevant to Linux and adjacent Open Source technologies.
The Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA) is a U.S. federal statute passed by Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama on September 16, 2011. The law represents the most significant legislative change to the U.S. patent system since the Patent Act of 1952 and closely resembles previously proposed legislation in the Senate with the Patent Reform Act of 2009.
Named for its lead sponsors, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), the Act switches the U.S. patent system from a “first to invent” to a “first inventor to file” system, eliminates interference proceedings and develops post-grant opposition. Its central provisions went into effect on September 16, 2012 and on March 16, 2013.
The formation of Open Invention Network signals a growing movement where companies today are looking beyond their own organizational boundaries. They are strategically sharing their intellectual property and building broader industry partnerships in order to accelerate innovation and drive new economic growth.
Open Source technologies, especially Embedded Linux, have enabled the rapid development of intelligent products that can be found throughout the infrastructure of homes. LIXIL’s participation in the OIN community shows our consistent commitment to open source innovation.
The OIN membership supports Kontron on many levels. With our focus on building out our IoT framework, it makes perfect sense to be a part of an open source community that protects the rights of all members within the community, especially to reduce our patent risk around Linux related technology.
Over its history, the automotive industry has undergone periods of significant innovation. We are now undergoing a fundamental shift in the way automotive platforms are used by consumers and businesses. Automotive Grade Linux and other OSS projects are helping the industry rapidly transform. By protecting them from patent risk, OIN has enabled automotive manufacturers to effectively integrate new kinds of software-based technologies into cars.
Embecosm has joined OIN, an industry consortium with an ever-growing patent pool that facilitates cross-licensing, for mutual defense against those who would use patents against the Linux ecosystem. All members are protected, even companies like Embecosm which bring no patents to the table. I don’t like the world we are in, but at least Embecosm is now in a stronger position to protect free software.
As we build a better experience for our clients, open source can be a significant innovation enabler for the platforms and applications we build and integrate. We’re proud to join the Open Invention Network and support its role in protecting open source software from patent risk.
Having OpenStack in the core of our product, FishOS, we highly appreciate the value and importance of shared knowledge, experience, and technology of open source communities. Joining OIN emphasizes our commitment to developing and distributing open source technology. Thanks to expertise, software companies can mitigate the global patent risk to open source software like FishOS for all the market players – developers, vendors, customers, and end-users.
For more than 160 years, Heidelberg has been a leading provider of a spectrum of printing technologies used by the most respected print shops in the industry. We recognize the value of open source innovation in our firmware and increasingly sophisticated document management systems. By joining OIN, we are demonstrating our continued commitment to innovation and supporting it with patent non-aggression in Linux and adjacent technologies.
We see incredible value in the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) communities. Our work in collecting, preserving and making source code available to developers, academics and government entities, will enable developers to continue to innovate. We are very pleased for OIN’s sponsorship and its support in maintaining the technical and scientific knowledge that may be lost without preservation and may be further useful to developers from an intellectual property perspective.
Companies building products using open source technologies must help protect open source communities from threats posed by abusers of low quality patents.We applaud the innovative approach taken by the OS Zone and call on other companies to support solutions that protect open source innovation from targeted threats.
Join the OIN Community
Membership is FREE and the process is simple. We welcome all individuals & companies who advocate for Open Source and are focused on reducing risk from the threats of patent aggressors.