Open Invention Network to make Commerce One patents available for Linux

Remember all the commotion about the mysterious buyer at the bankruptcy sale of patents of Commerce One? Some (all?) of these patents have now ended up in Open Invention Network, which offers patents royalty-free to promote Linux.

IBM, Novell, Philips, Sony and Red Hat are funding a new company, the Open Invention Network, which will acquire patents and offer them royalty-free to promote Linux. Among its initial patent holdings will be a set of business-to-business electronic commerce patents that were purchased from Commerce One by a Novell subsidiary.