The New York-based patent stockpiler was formed in November 2005 by IBM, Red Hat, Novell, Philips and Sony to acquire patents, offering them royalty-free to Linux supporters and using them as a defensive weapon against patent attacks.
The non-profit organization now finds itself in the surprising position of chastising one of its members. CEO Jerry Rosenthal has stated that Novell's patent covenant agreement with Microsoft, which has prompted Redmond's claims against Linux, was unnecessary.