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Open Invention Network Is Looking For Prior Art -- 2 Ways To Help Out

By Pamela Jones et al.

Open Invention Network has announced it has decided to look for prior art on three of the Microsoft patents that were used in the TomTom litigation:

Open Invention NetworkSM (OIN), a collaborative enterprise that enables innovation in open source and an increasingly vibrant ecosystem around Linux, today announced that U.S. patents 5579517, 5758352 and 6256642 have been placed for prior art review on the Post-Issue Peer-to-Patent website associated with the Linux Defenders portal. These patents were recently cited in litigation that targeted TomTom NV.

OIN's mission includes encouraging the Linux community to review patents-of-interest that may be of suspect quality or riddled by questions regarding prior art. Accordingly, the patents used in the recent TomTom patent action have been posted by OIN for review and submission of prior art by the Linux community. Submissions may be made by visiting http://www.post-issue.org, clicking on the appropriate patent and selecting "Submit Prior Art".

I guess we are not alone in wanting to find a way to pin the tail on that donkey. I smiled when I read this quotation from OIN's Keith Bergelt in the press release:

"I encourage active participation from the entire Linux community so that other companies seeking to advance Linux strategies can be better informed about the quality of these patents."

Heh heh. Or the lack thereof.

LinuxDevices has more details for you. Red Hat has already issued a statement, too, strongly endorsing this effort:

Red Hat is pleased to endorse the growing movement within the free and open source community of gathering prior art to undermine invalid software patents. We're particularly pleased that Open Invention Network's Linux Defenders has now invited scrutiny of the three patents that Microsoft used in the TomTom case to attack open source, as numerous public reports suggest weaknesses in these patents.

Groklaw members have experience in looking successfully for prior art, so that means us too. If you would like the world to know the exact worth of those FAT patents -- or the lack thereof, more likely -- can you please help? I'll show you a couple of ways you can, if you want to. I think it is important for everyone to understand not only what these patents are worth, but that while proprietary vendors may have money, FOSS is top-heavy with brains and a willingness to work cooperatively to protect our software and our development model. I view this as an extension of the trail we on Groklaw blazed, taking advantage of what the Internet makes possible to work together, no matter where we happen to live. We can't create prior art, but if it's out there, who better to find it? It'll be fun.

Full post as published by Groklaw on April 29, 2009 (boomark / email).