"Cooptition" and patents

A cooptition deal between Microsoft and Novell involves patent-related payments. Microsoft will pay Novell a net amount of $108 million in an agreement under which both companies release each other from patent claims from past actions. The upfront payment is offset by Novell payments of at least $40 million over the course of the deal to ensure Microsoft won't sue Suse customers for patent infringement. The Novell payments are based on how much revenue Novell garners from sales of its Linux and Open Enterprise Server products.

Microsoft GC Brad Smith: "There are two things in the patent deal. We had to address proprietary code and we had to address open-source software. We addressed the proprietary issues through the net up-front payment. The open-source (part) we addressed through the percentage of revenue."

Under the agreement, Microsoft directly provides Suse Linux customers a covenant that the company won't sue for patent infringement, Novell said.

Novell even put up a webpage on the issues:

http://www.novell.com/linux/microsoft/faq_opensource.html