Bringing More People into the Forest

Seth Levine of Venture Chronicles has a very good post about IBM's streamlining of patent licensing for startups.

IBM has one of the largest (if not the largest) patent portfolio in the world. It has remained the leading patenter for the twelve years. This move will bring some certainty for the startup community it also has the benefit of bring many patents that would otherwise not be developed into the hands of people who can use them.

While IBM does have a program to create internal startups, the simple fact is that IBM has too many patents to use them all. By creating this patent portfolio deal suddenly patents that would otherwise not be used can be used to build new products and services. Given the current IP system, IBM's deal is a good thing.

Tags: IBM, Seth Levine, IP, patents