Open-Source Insurance Provider Finds Patent Risks in Linux
On Monday, OSRM, a provider of open-source consulting and risk mitigation insurance, announced that the group has found that there are 283 issued, but not yet court-validated, software patents that could conceivablly be used in patent claims against Linux. That's the potential bad news for Linux developers and users. The good news is that the Linux kernel contains no court-validated software patents. For those who are seriously concerned about the risks, OSRM (Open Source Risk Management)will be offering a litigation insurance policy starting in 2005.
OSRM began offering copyright infringement insurance to Linux users in April 2004.
Patent attorney Dan Ravicher, leader of the OSRM patent study and executive senior counsel to the Free Software Foundation, added that only about "half of software patents stand up in court."
Of those 283 issued patents, Ravicher continued, "about a third are held by organizations or companies that are seen as Linux friendly: IBM, HP, Novell, Red Hat, etc. At the same time, though, 10 percent of these patents are held by Microsoft."
