Contact: Will Rodger, 202-783-0070 ext. 105

For Immediate Release January 11, 2005

IBM Patent Grant a Boon to Innovation, OSAIA says

Washington, DC – IBM's decision to give the open source community rights to more than 500 patents underscores the urgent need for patent reform, the Open Source and Industry Alliance said today.

“IBM, the world's largest patent holder, has helped the open source community enormously with this grant,” said Ed Black, President and CEO of the Open Source and Industry Alliance. “These patents are of real value to a community that is particularly vulnerable to nuisance suits. Yet, innovation should not depend on the goodwill of enlightened management alone. Government needs to address the underlying problems of poorly vetted and erroneously granted software patents. OSAIA will work with anyone who wants to reform the way software patents are granted in the US and abroad.”

Years ago, few software developers patented their products, since they thought that most of what they did was either too obvious or too costly to protect. But a steady stream of erroneous patents has demonstrated that even obvious ideas can win approval from the US Patent Office. Now, many small competitors avoid much of the software market for fear of being sued for “infringing” patents of questionable quality. Far from encouraging innovation, bad software patents now threaten it altogether. The US Patent Office must reform the way it grants patents.

“Open source programers, like small companies, have little hope of prevailing over large corporations in civil court.” Black said.”The continued success of this most dynamic software market depends on reasonable and balanced patent policy.”