Linux Defenders is Newest Patent Protection Program

The Linux Defenders program was unveiled Tuesday, as a program designed to address intellectual property concerns surrounding inferior patents and the open source community.  The program, the brainchild of the Open Invention Network, aims to make it easier for USPTO officers to access prior art, increase the quality of issued patents, and decrease the number of poor quality patents.

As reported by Information Week, the program solicits prior patents to help invalidate and reject patents that are of low quality.  The program goes one step further by also encouraging high quality inventions and defensive applications.

Keith Bergelt, the CEO of Open Invention Network, said “This landmark program will benefit open source innovation by significantly reducing the number of poor quality patents that might otherwise be used by patent trolls or strategists who behaviors and business models are antithetical to true innovation and are thus threatened by Linux.”

Use of the Linux Defenders program is free of charge to those who have contributed prior art or inventions.  It will also contain a Defensive Publications component with Web-based forms, and a “Wiki-style” contribution model.  Defensive Publications are records that provide descriptions and artwork of a product so that it can enter the public domain.