Bonum Certa Men Certa

Novell Gains New Software Patents to Potentially be Sold to Patent Trolls

Troll picks cows



Summary: 5 more patents are awarded to Novell, which is in possession of a dangerous portfolio that could be auctioned away

MATT ASAY, a former employee of Novell, warned that Novell's many patents may be passed to patent trolls, who will then attack UNIX and/or Linux. As Novell negotiates with potential buyers of the company (up to about 20 if not more unnamed candidates), the engineers and the lawyers continue filing for more and more software patents, the latest of which have just been approved and published. They are:

Key distribution , patent No. 7,734,051, invented by Stephen R. Carter of Spanish Fork and Carolyn B. McClain of Springville, assigned to Novell Inc. of Provo.

[...]

Secure tunnel domain name management, patent No. 7,734,792, invented by Chendil Kumar and Vishnu Govind Attur of Bangalore, India, and Allu Babula of Ganjam, India, assigned to Novell Inc. of Provo.

Client-server model for synchronization of files , patent No. 7,734,826, invented by David K. Brown of Carmel Valley, Calif., Thomas A. Rolander of Pacific Grove, Calif., Robert D. Silberstein of Monterey, Calif., and Josef Wein of Yokohama, Japan, assigned to Novell Inc. of Provo.

[...]

Secure problem resolution techniques for complex data response networks , patent No. 7,734,962, invented by Jason Allen Sabin of Pleasant Grove, Vernon Roger Holm of Sandy and Carolyn B. McClain of Springville, assigned to Novell Inc. of Provo.

[...]

Credential mapping, patent No. 7,735,122, invented by David Nephi Johnson of Provo, Dustin Lance Nielson of Salt Lake City, Jerry E. Griffis Jr. and Paul Erik Sherman of Lehi, David Kent Beus of Highland, Nathan Blaine Jensen and Stephen R. Carter of Spanish Fork, William Street and Michael William Cook of Orem, assigned to Novell Inc. of Provo.


Is this how Novell increases its value? By gaining more algorithmic monopolies that it publicly brags about?

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