[lsg-rg] IBM Pledges Royalty-Free Patent Access for Open Standards in Healthcare and Education

[Abbas Farazdel]

Dear GGF Life Sciences Grid (LSG) subscriber,

IBM has just announced the attached initiative that should be great news 
for members of our community who are practicing in healthcare or 
education.
 
Abbas Farazdel, LSG Co-Chair





New IBM Initiative Advances Open Software Standards In Healthcare and 
Education

ARMONK, N.Y. - October 24, 2005 - IBM's healthcare and education practices 
today announced a major initiative to improve interoperability and 
information-access through the development of open software standards.
Under this initiative, IBM is pledging royalty-free access to its patent 
portfolio for the development and implementation of selected open 
healthcare and education software standards built around web services, 
electronic forms and open document formats.  
Industry growth and service delivery in healthcare and education currently 
are hampered by the proliferation of incompatible document formats and 
proprietary technology, making it difficult to find, retrieve and share 
data such as standardized medical records and educational resources.   
IBM believes its new initiative can help address the complex ecosystem 
across which information must be accurately, securely and efficiently 
shared and assist our clients in these two vital industries as they work 
to improve the quality and lower the costs of services they deliver to 
patients, physicians, students and teachers around the world.  Standards 
can foster interoperability and dramatically improve the ability to 
communicate data and information among and between companies and 
throughout communities.  
"Healthcare remains one of the greatest challenges for our society and our 
economy worldwide. Many industries are transforming, using open software 
standards to create a powerful platform for innovation and industry 
growth," said Neil de Crescenzo, vice president, Global Healthcare, IBM 
Business Consulting Services.  "Our initiative can help do the same for 
the worldwide healthcare industry."
"Fueling innovation and creating a highly skilled workforce requires 
greater collaboration between students, administrators, industry, school 
systems and institutions of higher education," said Sean Rush, general 
manager, IBM Global Education Industry.  "IBM is eager to contribute to 
this collaboration through open standards and industry best practices that 
drive down costs and provide an environment of learning and advancement.  
We're calling on others to join us in promoting the development and 
adoption of truly open software standards."
Innovation based on open software standards can help transform both 
healthcare and education. 
In the healthcare industry, access to IBM's patents has the potential to 
spur worldwide development of standardized electronic health-record 
networks, fostering the widespread adoption of health information 
technology.  Such technology will support the protection, privacy and 
security of health information through open, interoperable technologies.
For example, where healthcare standards seek to provide higher priority to 
emergency-room requests for patient information than routine office 
inquiries in web services applications, IBM's patents differentiating 
levels of service could speed implementation of such prioritization.  
Royalty-free access to IBM's US patent number 6816907:  System and method 
for providing differentiated services on the web, Mei, et al., November 9, 
2004, may provide needed technology to make that standard a reality.
In Education, open access to IBM's patented technology can improve the 
effectiveness and productivity of the education process and of the 
management of school districts and institutions.  Standards-based 
applications could provide students in remote areas, including those in 
emerging geographies, access to teachers, lesson repositories and 
information resources currently beyond their reach and regardless of time 
zones.
For example, IBM has patents that use web services to link students and 
teachers anywhere in the world based on the compatibility of their 
teaching and learning styles.  One such patent is IBM's US patent number 
6782396: a method, program and system for aligning students and teachers 
according to dominant learning and teaching styles, Greene et al., August 
24, 2004.
IBM's work with the healthcare and education industries follows IBM's 
pledge of 500 software patents to the open source community earlier this 
year.  Since then, other companies and organizations have made similar 
pledges helping to create an open source "patent commons."
IBM's new initiative to advance open software standards in healthcare and 
education and further related information will be posted on IBM's website 
at http://www.ibm.com/research/innovation/ip.
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