From InfoWorld: Microsoft wants to help its cloud customers feel better protected from intellectual property lawsuit threats. To that end, the company is launching a new feature that’s designed to give them additional shielding.
The Azure IP Advantage program (the IP stands for intellectual property) provides a trio of benefits. First, Microsoft will indemnify all Azure customers from intellectual property infringement claims resulting from their use of Azure products, including open source components.
Second, the company will allow customers that meet a set of criteria access to a “patent pick” program, which will allow them to transfer one Microsoft patent from a list of 10,000 to help them with defending against an infringement suit.
Third, in the event Microsoft transfers its patents to a non-practicing entity—sometimes called patent trolls—eligible Azure customers will get a license.
The system is supposed to help ease the transition to the cloud by giving companies extra peace of mind. Right now, lawsuits over intellectual property relating to open source technology in the cloud are rare, Forrester vice president and principal analyst Jeffrey Hammond said in an email.
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