The Washington Post (among others) are reporting that IBM intends to announce today it's release of 500 patents to the open-source community.
Covering a wide range of technologies, this is yet another strong move by IBM to assist the open-source community in the growing struggle around patent claims. Many commercial development firms argue that open-source software includes patented code that would expose it's developers to lawsuits. This move would essentially render any similar claim around the donated patents and their related technology a non-issue. Microsoft has reportedly declined comment, and serve as a prime example of the opposite strategy - gobbling up patents left and right in a not-so-veiled attempt to defend their markets against the open-source movement.
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