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KDE Joins Open Invention Network as a Licensee
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Durham, NC -- Open Invention Network (OIN), the company formed to enable and protect Linux, today extended its community with the signing of KDE as a licensee. By becoming a licensee, KDE has joined the growing list of organizations that recognize the importance of leveraging the Open Invention Network to further spur open source innovation.
"Given its leadership in creating a user-friendly computing experience, including its advanced graphical desktop for the Linux community, we are pleased to have KDE become a licensee," said Keith Bergelt, CEO of Open Invention Network. "By doing so, KDE affirms its continued support for open source. We applaud their foresight in taking this step to support both itself and the open source community broadly."
"We view an OIN license as one of the key methods through which open source innovators can deter patent aggression," said Adriaan de Groot, vice president of KDE. "We are committed to freedom of action in Linux, and in taking a license we help to address the threat from companies that support proprietary platforms to the exclusion of open source initiatives, and whose behaviors reflect a disdain for inventiveness and collaboration."
Patents owned by Open Invention Network are available royalty-free to any company, institution or individual that agrees not to assert its patents against the Linux System. This enables companies to continue to make significant corporate and capital expenditure investments in open source -- helping to fuel economic growth. By developing a web of developers, distributors, sellers, resellers and end-users that license its patent portfolio, Open Invention Network is creating a supportive and shielded ecosystem to ensure the growth and adoption of open source solutions.
OIN has amassed a broad portfolio of patents, including patents held by nominees on its behalf. These patents are available to all licensees as part of the patent portfolio that OIN is creating around and in support of Linux. Its license agreement can be found at www.openinventionnetwork.com/pat_license_agreement.php.
About KDE
KDE is an international technology team that creates free and open source software for desktop and portable computing. Among KDE's products are a modern desktop system for Linux and UNIX platforms, comprehensive office productivity and groupware suites and hundreds of software titles in many categories including Internet and web applications, multimedia, entertainment, educational, graphics and software development. KDE software is translated into more than 60 languages and is built with ease of use and modern accessibility principles in mind. KDE4's full-featured applications run natively on Linux, BSD, Solaris, Windows and Mac OS X. For more information, visit http://www.kde.org.
About Open Invention Network
Open Invention Network is a collaborative enterprise that enables innovation in open source and an increasingly vibrant ecosystem around Linux. It does this by acquiring and licensing patents, influencing behaviors and policy and protecting the integrity of the ecosystem through strategic programs such as Linux Defenders. OIN enables the growth and continuation of open source software by fostering a healthy Linux ecosystem of investors, vendors, developers and users.
Open Invention Network has considerable industry backing. It was launched in 2005 by IBM, NEC, Novell, Philips, Red Hat and Sony. OIN has received supplemental financial support from Canonical. For more information, visit www.openinventionnetwork.com.
Open Invention Network, the Open Invention Network logo, Linux Defenders, Linux Defenders 911 and the Linux Defenders 911 logo are registered trademarks or the property of Open Invention Network, LLC. All other names and brand marks are the property of their respective holders.
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