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And MS gets "certain [Novell] IP assets"And MS gets "certain [Novell] IP assets"Posted Nov 22, 2010 16:22 UTC (Mon) by coriordan (guest, #7544)In reply to: Novell sold to Attachmate by stumbles Parent article: Novell sold to Attachmate
And MS, via CPTN Holdings LLC, gets "certain intellectual property assets" of Novell. If that means patents, then Mono could become a big problem.
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And MS gets "certain [Novell] IP assets" Posted Nov 22, 2010 16:36 UTC (Mon) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] Actually, the impact of this isn't immediately obvious to me. Holdings companies don't do development, so we're not talking about copyright and probably not trademarks. US$450 million is a reasonable sum, and first paragraph mention in the press release suggests that these are serious assets. Could it be something to do with removing Novell patents from the OIN pool?
What assets? Posted Nov 22, 2010 17:20 UTC (Mon) by dmarti (subscriber, #11625) [Link] Mary Jo Foley couldn't get a answer out of them.
And MS gets "certain [Novell] IP assets" Posted Nov 22, 2010 22:03 UTC (Mon) by armijn (subscriber, #3653) [Link]
Since when is OIN a patent pool?
And MS gets "certain [Novell] IP assets" Posted Nov 22, 2010 23:27 UTC (Mon) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] They have some use of their members patents to bring defensive action. The companies organized by Microsoft are probably ones that want to have the OIN threat out of the way so that they can bring suits.
And MS gets "certain [Novell] IP assets" Posted Nov 23, 2010 1:19 UTC (Tue) by linuxrocks123 (guest, #34648) [Link]
Are you sure about this? I can't find any documentation supporting this. I thought they could only bring defensive action with their own patents, which aren't affected by this, and that the members only agreed not to associate patents against the Linux system against each other, where the Linux system apparently does not include Android.
---linuxrocks123
And MS gets "certain [Novell] IP assets" Posted Nov 23, 2010 1:31 UTC (Tue) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] When they started the organization they sang a very different tune than they do today, which included the patents of members. I think there is a lot about OIN that is not on the web site. I always felt that most industry-sponsored patent defense activities around Linux were more about defending software patenting than Linux. I doubt we can even get a straight answer from OIN on this issue.
OIN lacks credible success story Posted Nov 24, 2010 17:31 UTC (Wed) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link] I'm not aware of the OIN having deterred anyone from asserting patents against anyone else. The OIN would like to make people believe so, but there isn't even one credible, verifiable success story. There has been some litigation involving Linux regardless of the OIN. When the OIN became involved with the TomTom case, everything that was known about the outcome wasn't any different from how comparable disputes ended.
OIN is all sorts of things including a patent pool Posted Nov 24, 2010 17:43 UTC (Wed) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link] In this blog post I outlined the three functions of the OIN. It buys up patents at auctions; it wants to serve as a deterrent (mutually assured damage); and it tries to establish a plurilateral cross-license agreement. All three of those activities are related to the concept of a "patent pool". The problem is just that the OIN doesn't appear to have had a verifiable positive impact in any of those areas.
And MS gets "certain [Novell] IP assets" Posted Nov 22, 2010 16:59 UTC (Mon) by SEMW (guest, #52697) [Link]
Given that Attachmate have said they'll continue developing mono [1], surely they'll have wanted any IP rights that came with that, which would include any mono patents? The "certain intellectual property assets" sold to the (MS-controlled) CPTN Holdings LLC would surely be things not directly attached to any product, like the Unix copyrights; since Attachmate would want those that directly pertain to anything they'd continue developing.
Besides, it's not like Microsoft doesn't already hold a ton of patents (on .NET) that directly apply to mono. How could a few more change anything? What assurances we have against Microsoft suing are based on things like the Community Promise, not a hope that they don't have enough relevant patents. (And the patents Novell donated to the Open Invention Network[2] were, well, donated. They presumably can't be undonated).
[1] http://twitter.com/migueldeicaza/status/6732038669340672
And MS gets "certain [Novell] IP assets" Posted Nov 22, 2010 17:43 UTC (Mon) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] Probably they got a license or a covenant not to sue.
"certain [Novell] IP assets" == 882 patents Posted Nov 22, 2010 18:04 UTC (Mon) by dmarti (subscriber, #11625) [Link] Another interesting item from the Patent Purchase Agreement section of the 8-K: "Also on November 21, 2010, Novell entered into a Patent Purchase Agreement (the Patent Purchase Agreement) with CPTN Holdings LLC, a Delaware limited liability company and consortium of technology companies organized by Microsoft Corporation (CPTN). The Patent Purchase Agreement provides that, upon the terms and subject to the conditions set forth in the Patent Purchase Agreement, Novell will sell to CPTN all of Novells right, title and interest in 882 patents (the Assigned Patents) for $450 million in cash (the Patent Sale)." Looks like this is just patents, not dusty file cabinets full of historic UNIX copyrights. Optimistically, maybe it's just MSFT trying to protect their Active Directory business from Novell's directory-related patents.
"certain [Novell] IP assets" == 882 patents Posted Nov 22, 2010 19:26 UTC (Mon) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] Someone should interview the folks at Open Invention Network and ask how this effects them. Jon, want to do that?
And MS gets "certain [Novell] IP assets" Posted Nov 22, 2010 18:24 UTC (Mon) by whitemice (guest, #3748) [Link]
"already hold a ton of patents that directly apply to mono"
and to Python, PHP, glibc, X11, gcc, scheme, Java, GNOME, KDE, D-bus, Apache, Perl, firefox, pidgin, empathy / telepathy, vala, etc....
And MS gets "certain [Novell] IP assets" Posted Nov 22, 2010 20:24 UTC (Mon) by gus3 (guest, #61103) [Link]
Mono goes to Attachmate, according to Miguel de Icaza on Twitter: "After the Novell acquisition, Mono continues as-is, but our paychecks will come from Attachmate instead of Novell."
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