HP moves to bolster intellectual property rights enforcement

Computerworld - Hewlett Packard Co., said today that it plans to increase enforcement of its intellectual property, a move aimed at vendors selling products based on HP technology -- not at the users of those products.
HP's announcement of the formation of a centralized IP licensing organization was designed to coincide with today's release by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office of a list of top companies receiving patents.
HP moved from ninth place on that list to No. 5, receiving 1,759 patents while maintaining a relatively flat annual research and development budget of about $4 billion over the past few years, company officials said. The top spot on the patent list was again held by IBM, which received 3,415 patents last year, up slightly from 3,288 in 2002. It was IBM's 11th consecutive year as No. 1.
HP's Plans
"There is no intention at all to go after end users," said Joe Beyers, who as vice president of IP licensing at HP will head the newly created unit. He said his unit will focus on firms that ship products using HP's technology and will work to do more to make companies better aware of IP licensing opportunities, he said.
In addition to IBM and HP, two other U.S.-based companies were in the top 10, Micron Technology Inc., which was No. 6, and Intel Corp., which was No. 7. Micron was third in 2002, and Intel was in 15th place that year.
After IBM, the list breaks down like this: Canon Kabushiki at No. 2 with 1,992 patents, followed by Hitachi Ltd. with 1,893, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. with 1,786, HP, Micron with 1,707, Intel with 1,592, Philips Electronics NV with 1,353, Samsung Electronics Co. with 1,313, and Sony Corp. with 1,311.
HP officials in an interview said the company had been managing its IP on an "ad hoc" basis by business units and had missed out on opportunities to "gain additional value" from its portfolio.
The company has started several licensing programs, including technology involving DVD+RW, a format for rewritable DVDs; HP Auto-MIDX Networking, a technology for automatically configuring local area networks; and Ultrium, a format for next-generation linear data storage.