Red Hat, Novell Linux Sued on Patent Claims

Patent holding company IP Innovation has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Linux implementations from Red Hat and Novell.

Patent holding company IP Innovation has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Red Hat and Novell, claiming their Linux products violate a patent on "user interface with multiple workspaces for sharing display system objects." The lawsuit seems to target the graphic interfaces used by Red Hat’s and Novell’s Linux products, rather than the core Linux operating system, but the suit may nontheless raise doubts amongst organizations and enterprises concerned Linux may be vulnerable on the intellectual property front—a perception software giant Microsoft would be all-to-happy to encourage.

The lawsuit alleges that Red Hat’s and Novell’s Linux products infringe on U.S. patent 5,072,412, which dates back to 1987 and originally came from the famous Xerox PARC. The suit seeks $20 million in damages and injunctive relief.

IP Innovations has no products of its own; rather, the company is a patent-holding subsidiary of Acacia Research that exists solely to license a portfolio of about 140 technology patents and pursue infringement claims against anyone it believes is violating those patents.

Although Linux advocates have been consistently confident that the core Linux operating system is not encumbered by patent claims, individual Linux implementations could be more vulnerable. IP Innovation’s claim against Red Hat and Novell could carry some momentum: in April of 2007, the company sued Apple for violating the same patent in its Mac OS X operating system; Apple settled with IP Innovation for an undisclosed amount.

Some industry watchers are noting that two former Microsoft executives recently joined Acacia as high-level executives, leading to speculation Acacia might be acting as a proxy for Microsoft’s oft-repeated assertions that Linux violates Microsoft patents.

Novell and Red Hat have yet to comment on the suit.