'Every company today is becoming in part a software company ? we see this every day at Microsoft,' said Smith of his company's new initiative in an announcement post published late yesterday. 'That?s why today we are announcing Microsoft?s Shared Innovation Initiative. It is based on a set of principles designed to address co-created technology and intellectual property (IP) issues that give customers clarity and confidence regarding their work with Microsoft. The initiative is designed to strike a healthy balance that will both help our customers grow their business through technology and enable Microsoft to continue to improve its platform products.'
The heart of the initiative is seven 'Shared Innovation Principles', drawing in part from similar initiatives launched around the Windows platform, privacy, and cloud computing: respect for ownership of existing technology; assuring customer ownership of new patents and design rights; support for open source licensing new IP rights back to Microsoft; software portability; transparency and clarity; and learning and improvement.
Under these principles, Smith claims, Microsoft will respect ownership of the intellectual property its partners bring to the table, and allow partners to own any improvements that are made under collaboration. Smith also promises that his company will cooperate with patent applications, assigning its customers all rights, titles, and interest in any patents resulting from partnerships, and will allow partners and customers to release any code created under partnership using a permissive free software or open source licence. Smith has also promised that Microsoft will make no efforts to prevent shared innovations from being ported to rival, non-Microsoft platforms.
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