A group selling insurance to protect those using or selling Linux against intellectual property lawsuits says Linux may infringe 283 patents and called for patent system reform and more push from the Linux community to fight for it.
An analysis by the Public Patent Foundation for Open Source Risk Management said that the 283 patents in question haven't yet been reviewed by the courts and could still be used to support patent infringement claims against the open-source operating system.
"To be clear, this is not a level of potential infringement greater than that of proprietary software," wrote the analysis's author, PPF founder Dan Ravicher, "[but] comparable proprietary software faces the same level of infringement."
Ravicher also wrote that with the current state of the patent system – which former U.S. Patent and Trademark Office director James Rogan has said is in "crisis" – challenging every one of those 283 patents would be prohibitively expensive if not impossible.
"Although I have serious doubts that any of them contain valid claims covering technology critical to Linux," Ravicher wrote, "the high costs of patent litigation would make proving that in court a severe burden for some and, unfortunately, an impossibility for others. The system is punishing the very people it was designed to help, and it needs to change; but in the interim everyone must figure out a way to deal with it."
The SCO Group has been in litigation battle with IBM over charges that IBM moved Unix technology into Linux in violation of a contract between the two companies. OSRM is selling patent litigation insurance coverage – which will first take operating effect in 2005 – for $150,000 per year to cover litigation and settlement costs up to $5 million.
OSRM founder-chairman Daniel Egger said free and open source software developers and vendors should become more active in pushing for patent reform. "It is too easy today to game the patent system and tax individuals and companies who are actually leading the development of new technologies. The Linux community has shown its power when it collaborates to resolve issues of importance; and, it is my hope that they will channel some of their efforts in support of structural patent reform."
OSRM also believes litigation in resolving patent issues should be a last resort. "It is generally possible to resolve such disputes in a way that does not impede the relevant free and open source software program," the company said, "but which also satisfies the patent holder's reasonable remands. Mutual understanding that non-litigation options
