So today as reported on Lawrence Lessig’s blog, IBM is pledging 500 patents to a patent pool a safe zone for open source development. Even though Lessig places this news under his “hero” category, I will use my Not Wholesome category, in fact I think I will break out my rarely used Not Wholesome!!! category to comment on it,

Why? In 1999, IBM, the largest patent holder in the world, made a profit of 1 billion dollars from patent licenses alone (!!!) and along with this, they accrued a record breaking 2,756 new patents (!!!). The following year, they made 1.5 billion from their patents and were awarded 3.4000 new patents. 500 patents in a safe sone patent pool is not even like placing patents in a kiddie pool but is more like putting them in a (small) spalsh of urine. I am not alone in thinking of IBM’s move as tactically disingenous, yet enormously advantageous for them. It gives them some sort of street cred, fame, and publicity, and sort of serves to momentarily ward off the contradiction that is open source at the largest patent holder in the world (and probably Known Universe). I was also glad to see NoSoftwarePatents stand firm to their credo:

It’s just diversionary tactics. Let’s put this into perspective: We’re talking about roughly 1% of IBM’s worldwide patent portfolio. They file that number of patents in about a month’s time.

Ok, so I have to admit as much as I think this is a problematic political move, it does make my dissertation a tad more exciting (I have a whole section on IBM) and I can’t really claim some total vitriolic hate for IBM. After all, I just ordered an X40.