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Red Hat

Revision as of 13:55, 15 March 2010 by Ciaran (talk | contribs) (Reverted edits by 201.249.123.239 (Talk) to last revision by Ciaran)


Bilski submissions

Red Hat filed strongly anti-software-patent briefs for both the 2008 in re Bilski case and the 2009 Bilski v. Kappos case.

EU anti-swpat lobbying

During the EU Software Patents directive, Red Hat financed the No Software Patents campaign. Their counsel at the time Mark Webbink was also regularly in the European Parliament.[1]

Anti-swpat lobbying in India

In response to a 2008 proposal in India to change the patents manual to allow software patents, Red Hat submitted a letter arguing to continue excluding software from patentability.[2]

SOAP patent controversy

This section appears to be either misleading or inaccurate in several regards. I have asked folks to review this page. -- Warren Togami 20100207

Despite lobbying against software patents, Red Hat has raised some concerns when it began applying for software patents related to SOAP communication. Red Hat offers a non-aggression patent promise, but this promise is indeed a "promise", not a licence, and it's not irrevocable. Thus, if Red Hat had a change of management or was bought out, these patents could be used aggressively. The promise is also limited to only protecting the free software community.

While Red Hat previous owned software patents, these were just incidentally acquired when Red Hat bought other companies. The SOAP patent was worrying because it was the first act showing intent/desire to hold patents in its area of activity.

Press coverage

Related pages on ESP Wiki

External links

Related to Fedora

Fedora is a partly independent project with large involvement from Red Hat.

References

  1. I know this from personal contact with him in the parliament, but we should find a citation for it.
  2. http://ipindia.nic.in/ipr/patent/Patent_Manual_Feedback/REDHAT_INDIA_PVT._LTD._NEW_DELHI.pdf