In addition to your Community Membership, OIN 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.
Linux plays an important role at TomTom as the core of all our Portable Navigation Devices. We believe that by becoming an Open Invention Network licensee, we encourage Linux development and foster innovation in a technical community that benefits everyone.
Protecting open source is critical to us, our users and to the ongoing health of the Internet. We’re proud of our new role within OIN. We’re very happy with the direction OIN has been going.
Alibaba and Ant congratulate Open Invention Network on this impressive milestone. OIN has taken a leadership role and worked tirelessly to improve intellectual property protection for Linux system and open source software. Alibaba and Ant look forward to continued partnership with OIN and the international open source community to foster innovation and reduce IP risks.
As a licensee, we’ll have access to OIN resources in case we’re threatened by operating entities with patents.
China Mobile is committed to becoming a world-class information services and sci-tech innovation enterprise, and understands that Linux System and open source technology is a cornerstone to drive technological innovation and accelerate service innovation. After joining OIN, China Mobile will not only continue to support the innovative practice of open source projects, but also work closely with OIN and its members to promote the high-level implementation of the Linux System and open source techn… Read more
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.
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.
OIN protects the open-source community through a patent cross-license for Linux and related open-source technologies. The license is free and available to companies, organizations, and individual developers if they agree not to assert their own patents against Linux.
By fostering the largest patent non-aggression community in history, OIN has protected core Linux and a broad array of FOSS technologies from patent aggression. We have worked together for the past 15 years, with the goal that FOSS would grow unimpeded by patent risks, and we have largely succeeded. OIN has made a transformational difference. I look forward to working with Keith and OIN as it creatively faces new challenges in the next decade.
This move (regarding Huawei’s OIN membership demonstrates that joining OIN has become a no-brainer for any product company. Setting aside the patent trolls, who would never have an incentive to join, no one is asserting patents against Linux anymore. Waging a patent war against a popular open-source project like Linux is bad for business. Of course, the OIN definition of Linux is far broader than the kernel. Even so, the OIN pool protects the basic infrastructure of the web, and no serious pro… Read more
Join the OIN Community
The membership 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.