September 4, 2024 – Intellectual Property (IP) assets – specifically patents – are complex. Intangible assets account for more than 80% of all enterprise value, a large part of which is IP. Ensuring that patents are not used to impede Open Source Software (OSS) innovation is imperative. As an example, Red Hat — which owns more than 3,500 patents — helps protect the OSS community. The company — along with other Open Source firms — established OIN in 2005 as the only institution focused on mitigating OSS patent risk & OIN now maintains the world’s largest and oldest patent cross license. By safeguarding against patent threats, OIN has encouraged the adoption of OSS, the most significant driver of innovation in the 21st Century. OIN offers a patent license and member cross-licenses available to any party that joins the community. OIN has been successful because its message is clear – it uses its cross license to mitigate patent risk.