Message: "That's right, this group's product is patents."
Apple, Oracle, EMC and Microsoft bought Novell's patents
By Sean Michael Kerner on December 16, 2010 3:09 PM
From the 'Produktmarkte:Patente' files:
So who is behind CPTN Holdings -- the group that is acquiring 882 patents from Novell for $450 million??
Initially the only details about the patents that we knew was that Microsoft was involved and that Novell is NOT selling their Unix copyrights. Now thanks to the German Government and a report from Florian Mueller we do.
CPTN Holdings includes Microsoft, Apple, Oracle and EMC. We don't know the exact share breakdown at this point but we do what the primary product is that this group is offering.
The original german says it best: Produktmarkte:Patente
That's right, this group's product is patents.
The makeup of CPTN makes sense to me on a number of levels. The Open Invention Network (OIN) was supposed to be a clearing house for open source related patents, though it's debatable how effective that group actually is today.
So who is behind CPTN Holdings -- the group that is acquiring 882 patents from Novell for $450 million??
Initially the only details about the patents that we knew was that Microsoft was involved and that Novell is NOT selling their Unix copyrights. Now thanks to the German Government and a report from Florian Mueller we do.
CPTN Holdings includes Microsoft, Apple, Oracle and EMC. We don't know the exact share breakdown at this point but we do what the primary product is that this group is offering.
The original german says it best: Produktmarkte:Patente
That's right, this group's product is patents.
The makeup of CPTN makes sense to me on a number of levels. The Open Invention Network (OIN) was supposed to be a clearing house for open source related patents, though it's debatable how effective that group actually is today.
With CPTN, Microsoft, Apple, Oracle and EMC have potentially protected their business from a myriad of patent trolls that could have sued any one of these vendors over any given number of Novell's patents.
Additionally, at one level or another each of these vendors has some expertise in patent royalty licensing. Perhaps the consortium intents to license patents too (though that's just a guess).
No this group is not likely to keep Novell's patents for some kind of purely altruistic purpose (a la OIN), but keeping such a treasure trove intellectual property out of patent troll hands to protect themselves isn't a bad idea either.
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