Several technology companies alliance signed a patent control agreement

According to technology blog Re / code reports, several large and small technology companies alliance signed a patent control agreement to prevent intellectual property litigation.

The agreement involved nearly 300,000 patents from Google, Canon, SAP, Newegg, Dropbox and Asana. However, instead of cross-licensing patents, these companies agreed to join the License on Transfer ("LOT") to transfer their patent authorization network and promised to sell the patents to other LOT members.

The intention is to eliminate the threat of patents so that they can not threaten companies in the LOT, even if they fall into the hands of patent rogues.

Google last year called for companies to work together to deal with patent gangsters, called for the formation of LOT belongs to its follow-up. LOT also welcome other companies to join.

Eric Schulman, Google's chief legal officer in charge of the operation, notes that the LOT is particularly targeted at the status quo: According to RPX Research, the number of patent hooligans is at its highest level ever - more than 60% of patent litigation in 2012 was Patents sponsored by rogues, up 20% from 2006 - In the meantime, more than 70% of patents used by patent rogues originate from companies that are still operating.

That is, patent rogues do not simply collect obsolete patents from closed companies and independent inventors. It is often the companies accused of patent infringement who paid for research and development and were initially patented.

The patent reform of the U.S. government seems to have no result. LOT is one of the efforts of enterprises to change the patent system. Relevant companies think they must obtain patent rights for the efforts of their employees to prevent patent litigation. For example, Twitter is committed to giving its inventors more control over the use of patents.

LOT differs from common patent-sharing operations in that it involves numerous patent portfolios and the agreement applies only to the patent being transferred, so its members can still use their own patents to launch attacks against each other.

Brett Alten, a consultant for Dropbox intellectual property, notes that LOT's attraction is that "it's an inclusive model that is not biased toward big and small companies that are most likely to be in the LOT network SELLING OR TRANSFERING PATENT ASSETS Smaller companies are basically protected from the threat posed by those deals, which big companies can benefit from, as small companies often sell their patents to patent rogues when it is unsustainable.

LOT members include Asana, a productivity-product startup, and Asana has only three patents and has never faced a patent rogue suit. The company's co-founder, Dustin Moskovitz, said the company's defensive patent strategy will not change.

Translator: Le Bang

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