A press release published by the United States-based computer giant IBM indicates that 500 of its software patents will be released into the global open development community. The move means that any individual, community, or company working on or using software that meets the Open Source Initiative (OSI) definition of open source software "now or in the future" will be able to use the technologies without paying for a licence from IBM. The patents include software for a range of practices, including text recognition, database management, storage management, simultaneous multiprocessing, image processing, networking, and e-commerce. Click here for a list of the pledged patents and further information in PDF format.

Adam Jollans, IBM's world-wide Linux strategy manager, said "This is about encouraging collaboration and following a model much like academia." IBM described the step as a "new era" in how it dealt with intellectual property (IP) and promised that further patents would be made freely available: "IBM intends for this pledge to form the basis of an industry-wide 'patent commons' in which patents are used to establish a platform for further innovations in areas of broad interest to information technology developers and users." Stuart Cohen, chief executive of US firm Open Source Development Labs, said "I think other companies will follow suit."

According to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), in 2004 IBM earned the largest number of U.S. patents (a total of 3,248, which is 1,314 more patents than any other company) for the twelfth consecutive year. In that context, Florian Mueller, campaign manager of a group lobbying to prevent software patents becoming legal in the European Union (NoSoftwarePatents.com), called IBM's move insubstantial. "We're talking about roughly one percent of IBM's worldwide patent portfolio. They file that number of patents in about a month's time."