The Register: “Open source orgs strengthen alliance against patent trolls”

Patent trolls are increasingly targeting cloud native open source projects, leading the Cloud Native Computing Foundation and Linux Foundation to make efforts to extend their legal shields over such efforts.

The polite term for patent trolls is “non-practicing entities” (NPEs) – orgs that exist solely to extract licensing fees through legal claims of patent infringement.

“They chase any broadly adopted technology,” explained Joanna Lee, VP of strategic programs and legal at the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), a part of The Linux Foundation. “It’s a numbers game and it’s more profitable to chase broadly adopted technologies.”