October 24, 2005 7:58 AM PDT

IBM expands free access to patents

IBM is giving the health care and education industries free access to its patent portfolio, the company said Monday.

Organizations within these fields can tap IBM's patents for development and use within certain open-software standards for Web services, electronic forms and open document formats. The effort expands IBM's previous moves to open a portion of its patent pool to the open-source community.

"Many industries are transforming, using open software standards to create a powerful platform for innovation and industry growth. Our initiative can help do the same for the worldwide health care industry," Neil de Crescenzo, IBM global health care vice president, said in a statement.

IBM's patents could be used to help standardize electronic health-record networks, the company said. In emergency rooms, for example, IBM patents could help create technology to speed the prioritization and authorization process in requesting patient information via Web services applications.

Big Blue is also giving free access to patents for help in developing standards-based applications in the education arena. For example, IBM's patents could be applied toward technology that lets students living in remote areas access teachers, lesson plans and other resources.

IBM has roughly 40,000 patents worldwide, 10,000 of which are software related. And IBM has historically held the lead among tech companies in the number of patents won on an annual basis.

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Open Innovation in Healthcare
For more on IBM's move to make its patent database royalty-free for healthcare and education open standards implementation, see Irving Wladawsky-Berger's post on Healthnex, our new group blog on healthcare transformation.

<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://healthnex.typepad.com/web_log/2005/10/building_open_c.html" target="_newWindow">http://healthnex.typepad.com/web_log/2005/10/building_open_c.html</a>
Posted by Jack Mason (9 comments )
Reply Link Flag
Open Innovation in Healthcare
For more on IBM's move to make its patent database royalty-free for healthcare and education open standards implementation, see Irving Wladawsky-Berger's post on Healthnex, our new group blog on healthcare transformation.

<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://healthnex.typepad.com/web_log/2005/10/building_open_c.html" target="_newWindow">http://healthnex.typepad.com/web_log/2005/10/building_open_c.html</a>
Posted by Jack Mason (9 comments )
Reply Link Flag
How About....
... "an IBM's move to make its patent database royalty-free" for open standards implementation (Web Services and Extensible Markup Language Standards - XML) within the worldwide Banking and Financial Services Industries similar to what is being done for the worldwide Healthcare Industry and Education Sector!
Posted by Captain_Spock (895 comments )
Reply Link Flag
How About....
... "an IBM's move to make its patent database royalty-free" for open standards implementation (Web Services and Extensible Markup Language Standards - XML) within the worldwide Banking and Financial Services Industries similar to what is being done for the worldwide Healthcare Industry and Education Sector!
Posted by Captain_Spock (895 comments )
Reply Link Flag
Also Allow...
...the Open Source Community to strike a blow for OS/2 Warp's "freedom" by placing its Source-Code (or whatever parts of this code that can legally be open-sourced) in hands of the Open-Source Community that would undoubtedly preserve the "future" of this once promising Operating System.
Posted by Captain_Spock (895 comments )
Reply Link Flag
Also Allow...
...the Open Source Community to strike a blow for OS/2 Warp's "freedom" by placing its Source-Code (or whatever parts of this code that can legally be open-sourced) in hands of the Open-Source Community that would undoubtedly preserve the "future" of this once promising Operating System.
Posted by Captain_Spock (895 comments )
Reply Link Flag
 

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