I recently noted that, contrary to Blackboard General Counsel Matthew Small’s assertion that no patent holder can say for certain what they will or will not do with a patent, IBM has done exactly that by providing royalty-free licenses to linux on hundreds of their patents. But hey, that’s IBM. They’re into all that crazy hippy Open Source linux stuff. Surely a normal software company wouldn’t do that…right?
If IBM is too radical for you, then let’s look at Microsoft. Surprise, surprise, even that bastion of voracious techno-capitalism has announced that they promise–promise!!–not to assert patents that they hold on web services against anyone. And once again, that promise comes in the form of a legally binding license.
The next time any of you has the opportunity to speak with Matt Small, ask him why Blackboard is unwilling to do what all of the software industry leaders are doing with increasing frequency. Ask him why Blackboard will not provide a royalty-free license to whomever they claim that they will not sue. If you are a Blackboard customer, ask him why he won’t offer you a royalty free license to indemnify you. He clearly can. His only other truthful answer would be that it would reduce the value of the patent for him to do so. Because, you know, somebody someday may buy the patent from Blackboard, and if that somebody can’t sue you with it then Blackboard will get less money from the sale.
Nice, huh?
FYI. One of the attorneys on the Microsoft Corp. Standards team just started a blog today and posted a bit on this topic:
http://standardslaw.com/wordpress/?p=5