Patent Litigation Insurance Systems and Related Political Initiatives

News & Chronology

2004-10-12 US Novell: We Will Protect Our Opensource Customers From Patents
2004-08-02 US OSRM: Linux falls afoul of 283 Patents, We Offer Insurance
2004-07 UK Parliament passes Patents Act -- designed to facilitate patent enforcement by !SMEs and "small inventors" and to get patent office involved in this, inspired by lobbies which also back the patent insurance idea

campaign to put EU money into an insurance that covers patent litigation costs (mostly for asserting patents, according to some versions also for defence against patents) of !SMEs, started around 2001
a means of extending patent lobby influence to !SMEs that have, to the great disarray of the patent movement, to a large extent stayed outside of the system and are potentially hostile to it. State funding for patent insurance is an extension of existing funding for institutions such as "IPR Helpdesk", which create a lot of posts for pro-patent activists who can, if not really create a working insurance system, at least use this influence to gain footholds in !SMEs
propagated by
- Allvoice (patent company celebrated by the patent movement) and the "Patent Defence Union" which their CEO John Mitchell leads. They say "defence" but mean aggression.
- some UK !MPs
- a recent UK government whitepaper and friendly discussion in the UK Parliament
- at least one UK economist
- David Ellard in European Commission
- Arlene McCarthy
- Danish Patent Office
existing insurances
- Bernhard Condat (condat at chrystol org, occasional contributor to patents at aful org)
- Brian Kahin explained in an article/presentation why the success of patent insurances has been very limited

European Commission Document on Patent Litigation Insurance
- Quotes from this document:
- P21 "General reluctance of underwriters to accept risk in areas such as biotech and software" P37 " A further problem is the reluctance of certain insurers to offer protection in the higher risk areas of biotechnology, medical technology and computer software (areas of technology that many of the SME?s are working in) or if cover is provided, the premium is high following a costly IP due diligence and risk assessment usually paid for by clients before premium is quoted." P42 "The premium would depend upon the technology, high risk areas such as biotechnology and software would carry the higher premium."