Open source projects and companies become more and more the target of patent trolls which want to score easy money from those having it in excess or just those small vulnerable to such blackmailing. Even the open source giant just admitted that "One patent lawsuit “could make Red Hat go away”.

Open Invention Network (OIN) offers a practical solution for this problem. It's mission is to support companies developing or using ­open source technology by deterring patent aggression. We do this through a community that pledges not to assert patents against each other over Linux System and open source technology. This pledge already covers over 600 companies and projects and more than 2200 open source packages.

OIN is a kind of fort which welcomes everybody who wants to work on their open source projects without a fear to be raided by patent trolls or others who want to get you out of business by just starting a trial. Our community is free to join, whether you have weapons (licenses, patents) or not. The only thing we want is a pledge that you would not assert patents against our community in the context of open source. And you get this pledge back from every member of the community.

We are building a standard for the non-aggression behavior - this is perhaps the single most important point of our community. Step by step we are expanding that behaviour and including new technology each year. Every voice joining our community helps us do that.

I'll talk about OIN, its methods, protection it offers to its members, easiness to join and importance of being there for each project and for the whole community.