Open Innovation Network (OIN) is an intellectual property company that was formed to use patents to promote open source users, such as users of Linux. Members of the network includ companies like Sony, IBM, NEC and redhat. The idea is to assemble a portfolio of important patents and make them available to collaborative communities.
Acording to a recent WSJ post, OIN is planning to encourage programmers to publish inventions. By publishing inventions, programmers advance the publicly available state of the art by which new patent applications are judged. The world's patent offices will rely on the publications in an effort to force patent applicants to cancel or at least narrow their patent claims. As a result, the published inventions will make it difficult for other companies to obtain broad patent claims covering similar inventions.
The WSJ also noted that IEEE is planning to "team up with a unit of Dolby Laboratories Inc. to encourage companies to pool their patents covering specific technologies and license them as a group." The pooled patents are expected to make licensing easier and less expensive.
These are market responses to a patent system that provides strong patent protection and makes patents easy to obtain. A strong system provides an incentive to litigate. Together with the proliferation of patents, the incentive to litigate has also motivated the "patent troll" business strategy. Patent troll companies aggregate patents for the purpose of enforcing them, rather than using them to protect an investment in developing and selling products. By pooling patents, OIN and others hope to keep patents out of the hands of patent trolls. Keith Bergelt, OIN's CEO told the WSJ that OIN has already pooled 132 patents.
