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03 August 2009, 17:06

Open Invention Network starts buying patents

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The Open Invention Network logo The Open Invention Network (OIN) today announced that it was starting a new programme to acquire patents from "entrepreneurial inventors". The Distinguished Inventors Patent Acquisition programme offers cash for accepted patents while allowing the inventor to patent enhancements to the accepted patent. The OIN believe the programme will help independent inventors turn their patents into money, without them selling their patents to patent trolls, or companies seeking to "impede innovation".

The OIN acquires patents and makes them available, royalty free, to any organisation that agrees not to use its patent portfolio against the Linux operating system. The first patents to be acquired by the OIN's DIPA programme were US patents 5,862,372 and 7,185,316, both entitled "Visually Oriented Computer Implemented Application Development System Utilizing Standardized Objects and Multiple Views".

Both patents were acquired from V_Graph earlier this year. V_Graph founder and inventor Robert Morris said "We sold our patent portfolio to OIN because we are convinced that it is best for people to use our inventions constructively". The patents in question are referred to on V_Graph's site in a section on the companies rapid application development system, O-Zone.

(djwm)

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