[Members] proposal to join the Open Invention Network

[Winfried Tilanus]

On 01/19/2016 01:41 AM, Peter Saint-Andre wrote:

Hi Peter,

Good work. Did you have any contact with OIN about the XSF joining and
the XSF being within their scope?

Winfried

> Folks, I've been doing some research on patent pools as a way to protect
> the XSF, companies that use XMPP technologies, and open-source projects
> that implement XMPP. Basically the pool is an agreement to not sue each
> other and not be sued by those who hold patents in a wide range of
> open-source and open-standards technologies (although the OIN website
> talks alot about Linux, the patents in their pool are not limited to
> Linux itself because OIN has spread their coverage into the entire
> application space).
> 
> Based on my research as well as extensive discussion on the open-source
> foundations list, I have concluded that there could be significant
> benefit in joining the Open Invention Network, an open patent pool that
> was founded by IBM, NEC, Philips, RedHat, Sony and SuSe (later joined by
> Google). Over 500,000 U.S. patents have been "pledged" to OIN (i.e., are
> part of the pool but retained by their respective companies) by
> participating organizations and thus extended to 1800+ licensees:
> 
> http://www.openinventionnetwork.com/community-of-licensees/
> 
> OIN also seems to have registered a smaller number of key patents on its
> own:
> 
> http://www.openinventionnetwork.com/about-us/us-patents-owned-by-oin/
> 
> And OIN has 2300+ open-source packages in their package list:
> 
> http://www.openinventionnetwork.com/joining-oin/linux-system/linux-system-table/?cat_id=13&type=table
> 
> 
> Finally, OIN has safeguards in place to avoid being taken over for
> trolling purposes:
> 
> http://www.openinventionnetwork.com/press-room/faqs/
> 
> I see no downside and many upsides in having the XSF join OIN and sign
> their license agreement:
> 
> http://www.openinventionnetwork.com/joining-oin/oin-license-agreement/
> 
> The XSF can also help introduce individual XMPP-related projects and
> companies to OIN. The XSF would not represent such projects and
> companies with OIN or sign them up as licensees, but instead would
> encourage them to do that directly with OIN so that we can help to
> protect the XMPP ecosystem from patent lawsuits.
> 
> I plan to bring this up with the XSF Board of Directors at its next
> meeting, but I also wanted to raise awareness among XSF members before
> then.
> 
> Feedback is welcome, as always!
> 
> Peter
>