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IBM and TurboHercules, 2010
From en.swpat.org
In April 2010, IBM sent a letter to free software company TurboHercules with a "non-exhaustive" list of 106 patents and 67 patent applications which a project such as TurboHercules's project would infringe. Reactions from the free software community vary greatly.
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[edit] IBM's patent pledge
Two of the 173 patents were part of 500 patents which IBM promised not to assert against free software. For TurboHercules, the patent promise is irrelevant because, even if they were protected against those two patents, there are still 171 other IBM patents to worry about. However, the inclusion of these two patents in the letter to TurboHercules raises the question of how narrowly IBM plans to interpret its promise. A reaction from IBM seems to say that they think they can exclude companies from the promise whenever they decide that they are "competitors":
In 2005, when IBM announced open access to 500 patents that we own, we said the pledge is applicable to qualified open-source individuals or companies. We have serious questions about whether TurboHercules qualifies. TurboHercules is a member of organizations founded and funded by IBM competitors such as Microsoft to attack the mainframe. We have doubts about TurboHercules’ motivations.[1]
[edit] Patents trump interoperability?
The core of the IBM-TurboHercules case is about interoperability. IBM has used its patents as a defence. It is thus possible that the European Union will decide whether patents trump interoperability requirements.
It would be a big win if the European Union decided that patents cannot exempt companies from their requirements to allow interoperability.
[edit] Who attacked whom?
- (Note: although the media focusses on this part, it's a blame game, with little substance regarding software patents.)
Timeline:
TurboHercules filed an antitrust complaint with the European Commission regarding the bundling of IBM's mainframe software and mainframe hardware
Some, such as Groklaw, claim that this complaint constitutes an "attack" which frees IBM from its patent pledge (since IBM would be using its patents for a defensive counter-action rather than aggression)
TurboHercules, in a correspondence with IBM, said that it was unaware that "IBM has intellectual property rights in this area". Some say that IBM's list of patents is thus not a threat but just a reply to this statement, kinda requested by TurboHercules.
[edit] Related pages on en.swpat.org
- Competition law defence - this idea could be strengthened if the European Commission decides that IBM must be interoperable and can't avoid this obligation via patents
- Interoperability exception
[edit] External links
- IBM breaks the taboo and betrays its promise to the FOSS community, by Florian Mueller
- Glyn Moody's article on the topic
- IBM's letter, listing patents
- TurboHercules: The Next Step by Roger Bowler
- Groklaw: Why I Believe IBM is Free to Sue The Pants Off TurboHercules
- Groklaw: Digging a Little Deeper into TurboHercules/IBM - OpenMainframe.org and Microsoft
- IBM: IBM’s Open Source Patent Pledge
- When Reptiles Attack: Has IBM Tired Of FOSS?, by Simon Phipps
- Get Off IBM's Back Already! IBM Supports Linux, by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols
- FOSS Claims of IBM Breaking Promise Seem Mostly Smoke, Little Fire, Brian Proffitt, April 12th 2010
[edit] References
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