Google, Canon, Dropbox, others pool patents to ward off trolls

A coalition of technology companies large and small has created a sort of arms-control treaty to prevent future abuses of their intellectual property.

Among Google, Canon, SAP, Newegg, Dropbox and Asana, there are nearly 300,000 patent assets on the line. But the companies aren’t licensing all of each others’ patents today. Instead, by agreeing to join the License on Transfer network, they promise to grant licenses to one another whenever one of those patents is sold.

Clever. Sad, though, that companies have to resort to complicated tricks like this instead of just having the damn law changed to align with reality.

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  1. 2014-07-10 12:01 am
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