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And MS gets "certain [Novell] IP assets"And MS gets "certain [Novell] IP assets"Posted Nov 22, 2010 16:59 UTC (Mon) by SEMW (guest, #52697)In reply to: And MS gets "certain [Novell] IP assets" by coriordan Parent article: Novell sold to Attachmate
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
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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....
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