Google has expanded a promise to not sue over certain patents it holds. The "Open Patent Non-Assertion Pledge" was kicked off in March with 10 patents related to MapReduce. Now Google has said that it won't sue any open source developer over another 79 patents—unless it gets attacked with patents by a competitor first.
The 79 patents Google has now pledged were acquired from CA and IBM. They're related to data center management, a key element of competition between Google and the big Internet companies that are its rivals. The goal is "to encourage pro-competitive, defensive use of patents to support open-source innovation," writes Senior Patent Counsel Duane Valz in a company blog post. The patents at issue cover software "used to efficiently operate data centers, including middleware, distributed storage management, distributed database management, and alarm monitoring."
Google's non-assertion pledge is one of a few projects that are trying to push a bit of "patent peace," even as the smartphone space seems to be filled with patent conflicts. Although ideas regarding patent reform have gained unexpected steam this year in Congress, there's still a sense among many that companies should be taking their own initiative.
Last year, Twitter made a pledge to its developers to not use patents offensively. Other ideas to limit patent aggression include creating a "Defensive Patent License" that would limit how patents get used.
Google's move is certainly a gesture of goodwill toward those concerned about unnecessary patent aggression in the tech sector. However, Google doesn't really have much of an offensive patent program; it's a bit like a mostly pacifist country saying it will throw away some of its guns—but it oddly plans to remain very well-armed.
It's a dangerous world, after all. Google has been sued many dozens of times by both "trolls" and competitors. It has filed only one "offensive" litigation, against British Telecom (a company that sued Google first).
In order for patent non-aggression schemes to have real prospects, many other companies will have to join in. In the meantime, the plans may serve another purpose: they show lawmakers that companies like Google, which are advocating forcefully for changes to the law, are also making some efforts to help themselves.
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