Level: Introductory Robert Sutor (sutor@us.ibm.com), Vice President of Standards, IBM
29 Mar 2005 Find out why the recent release of 500 IBM® patents will help fuel innovation in open source technology through this detailed interview with Dr. Robert Sutor. At IBM, Dr. Sutor has been a member of IBM Research, and Director of Web Services Technology, and is now the Vice President of Standards. He has been involved in open standards actively since the earliest days of XML, and is a frequent speaker on standards and open source, and Web services, and Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA).
developerWorks: What does a vice president of standards do?
Dr. Robert Sutor: I worry about how IBM can do the best possible job at making everything talk using open standards. I look at what's happening in particular vertical industries, what are the schemas, the actual information that needs to be exchanged in the automotive industry as being different from, let's say, the electronics industry or the retail industry. I try to find how we can help standardize business processes in those areas.
We work with people in all corners of IBM, including the software, hardware, and research groups. We work with IBM attorneys to ensure what we're doing is really to the benefit of everybody, particularly when it concerns areas like open source, while adequately looking after IBM.
My job is to make sure that the word "open" has a tremendous amount of meaning in IBM, and it is reflected in everything we do as a business internally, and how that reflects outward with how we interact with our customers and our colleagues in the industry. We think the adoption of standards will drive growth for IBM, our partners, and the industry as a whole.
developerWorks: When IBM announced the opening of the 500 patents, the press release said the announcement represents a major shift in the way IBM manages and deploys its intellectual property. What does that mean?
Sutor: IBM has done things in the open for more than a decade. The announcement was a recognition that a lot of extremely good innovation is occurring in the open and in more collaborative environments. Some great examples of what I mean are Linux™, Apache, and Eclipse. It is fundamentally impractical to base a strategy purely on proprietary innovation and hold every single patent. A proprietary strategy will not grow the industry, and, from a technological perspective, move us to new places.
The shift can be thought of this way: IBM has started to use its intellectual property very actively in specific ways to help stimulate open or collaborative type of innovation. That's what we did with the patent pledge, which says in effect, "Look, here are 500 patents. More power to you if your project falls under one of the open source licenses as defined by the Open Source Initiative (OSI). We pledge we will not assert our patents against you."
However, if you decide to sue an open source project for patent infringement, you cannot participate in the Patent commons. We want people to build on and do new and wonderful things with these patents. But if you are not a nice player, you can't play.
This is our attempt to really jump-start a new way of looking at intellectual property and saying that some intellectual property is best used in the open. It should be used in a way that protects and encourages people to do more of the same and to create new and interesting technology.
developerWorks: What exactly is IBM promising?
Quite simply, our pledge is access to hundreds of patents for use in open source projects.
developerWorks: How much are the patents worth?
Sutor: We estimate the value of these patents to be about $10 million. We think people will find a great deal of value in these patents.
developerWorks: Why did IBM make 500 patents available? Is there a magic to "500"?
Sutor: We wanted to hit the broadest possible number of projects. This is starter set, if you will. We chose 500 because most people will say 500 is a fairly broad number. We want this to hit enough different types of projects to attract enough people to look and ask, "How is this relevant to me?" and, "Is there a patent I could use in my project?" or say, "Maybe I can create something new with this patent."
Fundamentally, our point is that we are moving to an equilibrium point nearer to a collaborative model and away from a very proprietary model, which has been the classic norm for the industry. Today, the equilibrium point is much closer to accepting that very good work can go on in an open, collaborative environment, and that you strike up balance between the two of them. By a combination of using intellectual property in the right way, by getting innovative with business models, not to mention technology, we can help stimulate growth. This industry must move away from the status quo. We must think about patents differently.
We think 500 is a challenge to the industry. We did not announce this will be the last word from IBM on this subject.
developerWorks: Is IBM considering some sort of a patent pool that others may join?
Sutor: Not a patent pool, but a "patent commons," which is more informal. This is not meant to be a complete thing, but to give people an idea of what we're trying to accomplish.
This highlights IBM's recent activities in patents and open source. In July 2004, we pledged not to assert any patents against the Linux kernel. Another example is in the area of Web services standards where we asserted that we would not make any claims. You should expect some other things from IBM in this area as the year goes by. We intend to be very creative.
developerWorks: You mentioned the patents IBM opened up can be used with any OSI-defined open source license. Some critics say the way IBM opened them up, implies that they could only be used with GPL or GPL-style licenses, and not with BSD.
Sutor: No. Go to the Open Source Initiative site (see Resources for a link) and there's a list of approved licenses. And there are many, many listed there: the new BSD license, the Apache software license, Eclipse. The GNU license is just one of many this will work with. The list of approved licenses is vast.
developerWorks: What if someone wants a license to use technology in one of the patents?
Sutor: If people want to make commercial products out of one of the 500 patents, they know where we are. They can talk to us just as they had before.
developerWorks: How did this get started?
Sutor: It was an evolution. We have many folks working in standards and in open source. As we looked at what we did with the Linux patent pledge last year, I think a lot people just continued to ask themselves, "What are the other possibilities?" There are different ways of approaching this from a patent perspective, from a technology perspective, from a standards perspective.
The discussion moved to IBM's January announcement that it is the leader for the twelfth year in the row in getting patents, and how this would be a great time to make a strong statement about using intellectual property constructively to stimulate open and collaborative work.
developerWorks: How much will this help open source?
Sutor: I think this is lighting a fire under people to understand the value of patents and open source. We hope others in the industry will join in. I think they should look at what they're doing, how they support open source, and what they're doing with their intellectual property.
This is all about increasing innovation. This is all about understanding that open and collaborative work is becoming increasingly important, and that when balanced with the traditional proprietary model, open and collaborative work can drive new and wonderful things for the industry.
developerWorks: Would you say companies that continue to embrace the tradition of building patent portfolios and pursuing a licensing revenue model are going in the wrong direction?
Sutor: I'd say that they need to look very carefully at what is the industry direction, and to recognize the world is changing. The source of innovation, when looked at from an industry-wide and from a global perspective, has moved from where it was [just] four or five years ago. Everybody needs to make sure that their strategies around technology and intellectual property, are in tune with what the industry, and in particular, what customers really want.
It all comes down to standards and open source, which I think are the catalysts for the next wave of growth for our industry. IBM is committed to open source, and the opening of these patents is another way IBM is arming the community with tools, technology, and knowledge.
Resources
About the author  | | | Bob Sutor is the vice president of Standards for IBM. In this role, he has the responsibility for driving and executing the cross-company business and technical strategy for open standards and open source as they relate to software, hardware, services, vertical industries, and emerging markets. Previously, he was director of WebSphere Product and Market Management. This included ownership of the WebSphere Application Server, WebSphere MQ, and the WebSphere Business Integration product lines, as well as Web services and service-oriented architecture. A 23-year veteran of IBM, he has worked in IBM Research; helped to jump-start industry use of XML; and served on the Board of Directors of the OASIS standards group and as vice chairman of the ebXML effort, a joint OASIS/United Nations endeavor. He has co-authored three books and two W3C recommendations. He has an undergraduate degree from Harvard College and a Ph.D. from Princeton University, both in mathematics. |
Rate this page
| 
