While there has been a heated debate over who should own newly created intellectual property, especially as it concern technology companies like Microsoft, who also operate in the customers’ markets and compete against the developers with the very technology they co-created.
Now, Microsoft has offered to let developers share ownership rights for intellectual property developed in partnership with the company in its Shared Innovation Initiative. And Microsoft pledges not to impose any contractual restrictions to prevent developers from porting new, shared innovations to other platforms.
The initiative according to analysts puts Microsoft ahead of the curve on the ecosystem in co-development of applications, which is perhaps becoming the preferred platform of the future.
Microsoft's Shared Innovation Initiative is based on a set of principles designed to address co-created technology and intellectual property (IP) issues that give customers clarity and confidence regarding their work with Microsoft.
According to the company, the initiative is designed to strike a healthy balance that will both help its customers grow their business through technology and enable Microsoft to continue to improve its platform.
The newly published Shared Innovation Principles will cover seven areas, including: Respect for ownership of existing technology, Support for open source, Transparency and clarity, among others.
Microsoft as an active contributor to open source development, welcome the opportunity to work with the community to contribute to work that they co-create if the developers chose to do so. And the above principles presents a path that will ensure that the co-creation of digital technologies creates new economic value to companies around the world.
No comments