Posts Tagged: "Azure IP Advantage"

The springing license does offer at least some protection in the future against patent aggregators looking to monetize IP assets, but it wouldn’t stop any party, including an actual patent troll, from sending a demand letter asserting rights to a patent outside of the Azure IP Advantage portfolio. But, how those in the program can be use one of Microsoft’s patents to defend against a patent troll seems rather questionable. By definition a patent gives the owner the right to do nothing other than exclude. So even if you have lawfully acquired rights through the owner you’ve acquired no affirmative rights, just a promise from the owner that they won’t exclude you from what it is that you are doing. Therefore, you cannot defend a patent litigation against a patent troll or any patent owner by pointing to a patent you have rights to use because that isn’t how a patent works.