SUSE Joins LOT Network to Protect Open Development and Innovation

Today, SUSE joins LOT Network, a global community of more than 1,700 organizations who have collaboratively immunized themselves and helped protect customers from the negative effects of opportunistic patent trolls. Each of the companies in this community has pledged to ensure that any patents they transfer to non-practicing entities (NPE) do not pose a danger to the rest of the LOT community or any of their customers. SUSE is proud to further its commitment to patent non-aggression in the open source space and looks forward to an engaging future in LOT Network’s community.

Software patents can pose many threats to innovation in the open source software space. One particularly common threat is that of patent assertion by NPEs – companies with no products of their own that exist to sue innovative companies for alleged infringement of software patents which were acquired purely for litigious purposes. LOT Network was created to address exactly this threat. When a patent from a LOT Network member falls into the hands of an NPE in the future, it also licenses the patent to all other members, removing the NPE threat for that patent from all members.

Ken Seddon, CEO of LOT Network, said, “Lawsuits from patent assertion entities stifle innovation by draining resources that companies could be using for more productive uses – like making more valuable products to solve customer problems. We welcome SUSE’s commitment and energy to helping curtail unproductive litigation in the technology industry.”

Membership in LOT Network is a perfect complement to SUSE’s founding membership of the Open Invention Network (OIN). SUSE’s engagement with both LOT Network and OIN shows how we are committed to openness and to opposing threats to open development and innovation.