Google continues its initiatives to fight the problem of patent trolling, which is the use of patents for the sole purpose of restricting competition and to obtain money through lawsuits or through agreements following threats of such actions. Recently the company announced the Google Patent Starter Program, an offer to grant some of its patents to some startups that meet certain requirements. One of the conditions is to join for at least two years to the License on Transfer (LOT) Network, an initiative for the exchange of patents created in 2005.
In April 2005, Google experimented the Patent Purchase Promotion initiative, offering to buy patents to prevent them from falling into the hands of patent trolls. Now the company tries another way, linked to the LOT Network, which in addition to Google includes many other companies who exchange their licenses on patents for purely defensive purposes.
Startups that in 2014 had revenues between $500,000 and $20 million can ask to participate in the new Google Patent Starter Program. If the request to participate is accepted, as well as exchanging patents licenses with the LOT Network members, the startup can have the license on some Google patents.
In this new initiative, Google will send the startups accepted in the Program a list of patent groups and they can choose two groups among them. Google will retain a non-exclusive license for the use of all patents given away to the startups.
According to Google, the Patent Purchase Promotion experiment was a remarkable success. The company didn’t provide many details but Kurt Brasch, one of its lawyers, stated that many patents were purchased thanks to that initiative at prices ranging from $3,000 to $250,000.
The Google Patent Starter Program will certainly not change significantly the patent market. However, it will strengthen the LOT Network with its agreements not to use patents as weapons against other companies. More radical changes will only come from new laws but the interests at stake are really huge.
Patents are supposed to protect investment in innovation but especially in fields such as software are used with parasitic aims because in the USA the possibility of patenting are very broad. This ends up bringing big money to parasitic companies that produce nothing braking innovation.
