{"id":14580,"date":"2019-03-28T13:08:40","date_gmt":"2019-03-28T13:08:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rsoftsolution.com\/blog\/microsoft-gives-500-patents-to-startups.html"},"modified":"2019-03-28T13:08:40","modified_gmt":"2019-03-28T13:08:40","slug":"microsoft-gives-500-patents-to-startups","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rbsitsoftwaresolution.in\/blog\/microsoft-gives-500-patents-to-startups.html","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft gives 500 patents to startups"},"content":{"rendered":"

Microsoft <\/a> today announced a major expansion of its Azure IP Advantage<\/a> program, which provides its Azure users with protection against patent trolls. This program now also provides customers who are building IoT solutions that connect to Azure with access to 10,000 patents to defend themselves against intellectual property lawsuits.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s maybe most interesting here, though, is that Microsoft is also donating 500 patents to startups in the LOT Network. This organization, which counts companies like Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Netflix, <\/a> SAP, Epic Games, Ford, GM, Lyft and Uber among its well over 150 members, is designed to protect companies against patent trolls by giving them access to a wide library of patents from its member companies and other sources.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe<\/span> LOT Network is really<\/span> committed<\/span> to<\/span> helping<\/span> address<\/span> the<\/span> proliferation<\/span> of<\/span> intellectual<\/span> property<\/span> losses<\/span>, <\/span>especially<\/span> ones<\/span> that<\/span> are<\/span> brought<\/span> by non-practicing<\/span> entities, <\/span>or<\/span> so-<\/span>called<\/span> trolls,\u201d Microsoft\u00a0 CVP and Deputy General Counsel Erich Andersen told me.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This new program goes well beyond basic protection from patent trolls, though. Qualified startups who join the LOT Network can acquire Microsoft patents as part of their free membership and as Andresen stressed, the startups will own them outright. The LOT network will be able to provide its startup members with up to three patents from this collection.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s one additional requirement here, though: to qualify for getting the patents, these startups also have to meet a $1,000 per month Azure spend. As Andersen told me, though, they don\u2019t have to make any kind of forward pledge. The company will simply look at a startup\u2019s last three monthly Azure bills.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to help the LOT Network grow its network of startups,\u201d Andersen said. \u201cTo provide an incentive, we are going to provide these patents to them.\u201d He noted that startups are obviously interested in getting access to patents as a foundation of their companies, but also to raise capital and to defend themselves against trolls.<\/p>\n

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Microsoft joins the LOT Network to help fight patent trolls<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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The patents we\u2019re talking about here cover a wide range of technologies as well as geographies. Andersen noted that we\u2019re talking about U.S. patents as well as European and Chinese patents, for example.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea is that these startups come from a diverse set of industry sectors,\u201d he said. \u201cThe hope we have is that when they approach LOT, they\u2019ll find patents among those 500 that are going to be interesting to basically almost any company that might want a foundational set of patents for their business.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for the extended Azure IP Advantage program, it\u2019s worth noting that every Azure customer who spends more than $1,000 per month over the past three months and hasn\u2019t filed a patent infringement lawsuit against another Azure customers in the last two years can automatically pick one of the patents in the program\u2019s portfolio to protect itself against frivolous patent lawsuits from trolls (and that\u2019s a different library of patents from the one Microsoft is donating to the LOT Network as part of the startup program).<\/p>\n

As Andresen noted, the team looked at how it could enhance the IP program by focusing on a number of specific areas. Microsoft is obviously investing a lot into IoT, so extending the program to this area makes sense. \u201cWhat we\u2019re basically saying is that if the customer is using IoT technology \u2014 regardless of whether it\u2019s Microsoft technology or not \u2014 and it\u2019s connected to Azure, then we\u2019re going to provide this patent pick right to help customers defend themselves against patent suits,\u201d Andersen said.<\/p>\n

In addition, for those who do choose to use Microsoft IoT technology across the board, Microsoft will provide indemnification, too.<\/p>\n

Patent trolls have lately started acquiring IoT patents, so chances are they are getting ready to making use of them and that we\u2019ll see quite a bit of patent litigation in this space in the future. \u201cThe early signs we\u2019re seeing indicate that this is something that customers are going to care about in the future,\u201d said Andersen.<\/p>\n

Article source: http:\/\/feedproxy.google.com\/~r\/techcrunchIt\/~3\/0qWqHt6vd1U\/<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Microsoft today announced a major expansion of its Azure IP Advantage program, which provides its Azure users with protection against patent trolls. This program now also provides customers who are <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[19],"tags":[25],"class_list":["post-14580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-enterprise-software","tag-enterprise"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t