Big Blue opens patent pool to healthcare industry

IBM is giving the healthcare and education industries free access to its patent portfolio, the company said on Monday.

Organisations within these fields can tap IBM's patents for development and use within certain open software standards for web services, electronic forms and open document formats. The effort expands IBM's previous moves to open a portion of its patent pool to the open source community.

Neil de Crescenzo, IBM global healthcare vice president, said in a statement: "Many industries are transforming, using open software standards to create a powerful platform for innovation and industry growth. Our initiative can help do the same for the worldwide healthcare industry."

IBM's patents could be used to help standardise electronic health-record networks, the company said. In emergency rooms, for example, IBM patents could help create technology to speed the prioritisation and authorisation process in requesting patient information via web services applications.

Big Blue is also giving free access to patents for help in developing standards-based applications in the education arena. For example, IBM's patents could be applied toward technology that lets students living in remote areas access teachers, lesson plans and other resources.

IBM has roughly 40,000 patents worldwide, 10,000 of which are software related. And IBM has historically held the lead among tech companies in the number of patents won on an annual basis.

Dawn Kawamoto writes for CNET News.com